President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed churchgoers of the Reformed Apostolic Mission of Southern Africa church in Gugulethu, Cape Town on Sunday, to pray for ‘a smooth and peaceful election’, as well as for the victory of the ANC at the elections later this month.
During the praise and worship service at the church, Ramaphosa stated that the church has been ‘with the ANC from its very inception’ and remains a strong ally, as reported by News24.
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‘The church is still with us. We feel it, we see it, we sense it, and we are grateful,’ said Ramaphosa.
‘Over the years, the church has never abandoned the ANC. It’s been part of the ANC; it’s been inside the ANC, around the ANC, and underneath the ANC, supporting it all the time,’ he added.
Ramaphosa later listed examples of what he believed demonstrated the ANC’s success as a ruling party, which included housing delivery and increasing employment.
News24, however, stated that the government has ‘failed on many key markers in both instances’.
He claimed that the ANC increased the number of formal employment from eight million people to 16.8 million people after apartheid, when the ANC won the 1994 elections and has been the ruling party of South Africa ever since.
South Africa’s official unemployment rate decreased to 31.9% in the third quarter of 2023, according to the results of the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS).
Under Ramaphosa’s tenure as head of state, this remains among the highest employment figures in the world.
The third quarter jobs numbers have also indicated that South Africa reached a ‘post-pandemic high’ in the third quarter of 2023, with the number of employed persons reaching 16.7 million.
This is an increase of 399 000, while the number of unemployed individuals decreased by 72 000 to 7.8 million.
Ramaphosa also added that the ANC would ‘prioritise job creation’ and that the party already has a ‘jobs plan’.
‘We are going to focus on the top priority that our people want us to stress on – jobs,’ said Ramaphosa.
‘We’ve got a jobs plan where we are going to be creating a number of jobs through various programmes. We will be training up to two million people,’ he added.
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Picture: Brenton Geach / Gallo Images