By Lesedi Sibiya-Diplomatic Insider 

After the State of the Nation Address (SONA) held in Cape Town, Ministers and MPs had spoken to the media to give their perspectives on what President Ramaphosa had addressed.

 Minister of Agriculture John Steenhuissen had expressed that a good judge of policy is shown through the outcomes of those policies. 

“You judge a policy not on its objectives but its outcomes and on all those measurable objectives have not worked, so I’d like to see more detail into how we can have empowerment that is genuinely going to reach black South Africans on the ground, and not continue to promote cadres” said Steenhuisen to the media.

 Minister of Tourism Patricia De Lille also spoke to the media regarding some of the amendments and partnerships South Africa holds in the tourism sector.

 “We must always be conscious about competition, there are loads of other countries we are competing against and if we continue with the partnerships, we’ve got a Tourism Growth Partnership plan that we put together with the private sector, because this growth in 2025 was not by coincidence, it’s because we choose the right issues to do, and we only had five and concentrated on those five issue” explained Minister De Lille. 

De Lille also made mention that South Africa has started to bid for international events within the tourism sector to be hosted in the country.

 “So far we have been successful with 55 that will be hosted in our country. Now from the 23rd-25th of February we will be hosting meetings in Sandton, where we bring 30/40 countries together to show what is in Africa in terms of the business sector.” Minister De Lille explained further. 

Herman Mashaba, leader of ActionSA political party, also spoke to the media and addressed comparisons between the SONA when former President Jacob Zuma was in power, compared to President Ramaphosa’s SONA addresses. 

He highlighted that listening to Zuma deliver the address was “torture” and criticised some of the ways that the current government has dealt with certain issues.

 “Who is going to be running our system to ensure that criminals are punished when actually our country is led by criminals?” said Mashaba.

 He also criticized this SONA, feeling that it was actually a waste of time as he feels that what was addressed had already been  expressed in previous SONAs and feels hopeless that the government will implement some of these amendments.