Ramaphosa's National Dialogue to discuss divisions caused by Trump's Afrikaner resettlement project
President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced that the National Dialogue will be held in August.
Image: Itumeleng English / Independent Newspapers
President Cyril Ramaphosa's national dialogue to address the pressing issues in the country will address the divisions created by US President Donald Trump's offer of resettlement to white Afrikaners as well as issues on unemployment and poor governance.
On Tuesday, Ramaphosa announced the appointment of an 'eminent persons group' made up of 31 prominent South Africans who will lead the National Dialogue, set to take place on 15 August 2025.
The dialogue will also recent comments made by US President Donald Trump, who invited white Afrikaners to relocate to the US based on false claims of white genocide - an issue that has become a divisive factor in the country.
One of the eminent persons, who requested anonymity, said the dialogue can be seen as a response to these concerns, aiming to address the country's challenges and promote national building.
'The issue should definitely come up, although everybody has a choice to leave the country…We are way beyond the colour lines now and should focus on nation building with the people who are in the country, instead of dwelling in the past.
'Sure, it's a bone of contention but we do have bigger problems," she said.
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However, not all are on board with Ramaphosa's dialogue initiative.
The uMkhonto weSizwe Party has rejected the dialogue as an "elitist farce," saying it is a "staged theatre for the political elite".
In a statement on Wednesday, its spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhlela asked why there were no ordinary South Africans, such as shack dwellers, represented?
'We reject this dialogue as a tone-deaf charade engineered by a regime clinging to power, desperately trying to manufacture consent through elitist backroom dealings.
'The so-called Eminent Persons Group, handpicked by the very same ruling class responsible for mass unemployment, deepening poverty, collapsing infrastructure and the ongoing betrayal of the Freedom Charter, is a mockery of the suffering endured daily by millions of destitute and despondent South African,' Ndhlela wrote.
The EFF has also expressed skepticism, questioning the government's motives and the selection process for the Eminent Persons Group.
"The challenges Ramaphosa's National Dialogue seek to address are not a product of triumph of human sacrifice against evil, which require collective national reconstruction, but are a product of man-made destruction and corruption of which he and the party he leads have been at the centre of," the EFF said in a statement.
The DA's national spokesperson, Willie Aucamp, welcomed the National Dialogue saying his party would embrace the opportunity.
'I think it's high time that we as a nation get together and discuss collectively what we see as a road forward for this country,' he said.
Build One South Africa (BOSA) described the announcement as a positive and necessary step forward for the country at a time of great political uncertainty, public anxiety, and economic malaise.
The GOOD Party's general secretary Brett Herron said it was long overdue as the wait had been frustrating.
'Nearly a year has passed since political parties signed the Statement of Intent of the Government of National Unity (GNU), which explicitly committed to convening a National Dialogue to tackle the country's deep and urgent challenges...The delay in giving effect to this promise has been frustrating, but the time for talking has finally arrived, and it must now be time for action too,' Herron said.
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Suddenly, like a frost front through a broken window, a major newsbreak occurred: you, my leader, in all your infinite incandescence, have appointed an Eminent Persons Group. Wait for it: 'To guide and champion the National Dialogue.' Not to draft, not to deliver — to guide, like torchbearers in a tunnel with no exit. Moreover, we're not stopping at one symbolic gathering. As Head of State, you are summoning all and sundry to a full-blown National Convention. One can only hope the guest list excludes Comrade Jimmy Manyi and his former boss uBaba kaDuduzane lest this turns into a Radical Economic Transformation revival festival. The first sitting of this National Convention, scheduled for 15 August 2025, will set the agenda. Imagine! The second, pencilled in for January 2026, promises to 'reinforce our shared values and adopt a common vision and programme of action'. What does it mean? In short, the Eminent Persons Group is like a cocktail: a retired judge mixing with a former apartheid politician, a peace activist, a Grand Slam champion, a rocket scientist, a mountain climber, unionists, and the odd former businessperson or two — all now expected to guide and champion our National Dialogue. In weather terms, it's akin to entrusting the thermostat to a room full of thermometers — none of which agree on Fahrenheit or Celsius. Yet this isn't intended to draft an agenda — no, not at all. If it doesn't set the agenda, what does it mean to 'guide and champion'? Jobs are haemorrhaging, growth is nonexistent, and interest rates freeze whatever sizzle the economy once had. Budgetary greenhouse Meanwhile, on another planet entirely, we have assembled a budgetary greenhouse stocked with 400 members of the National Assembly, 90 from the National Council of Provinces, and a bloated Cabinet of 75 ministers and deputies. Yet the national agenda now rests on the shoulders of a hodgepodge of rugby captains, soccer coaches, ex-judges, clergy, and authors. These noble souls are expected to steer our industrial, fiscal, monetary, and legislative future. Until 2026, this country will remain without a growth-inducing economic policy. Instead, our 'captains of sport and clergy' are expected to grind out the results of policymaking while inflation waltzes with the Treasury and the Reserve Bank storms through with hawkish winds. All the while, the Democratic Alliance will persist with its courtroom battles dressed up as a moral crusade, trying to undo the very legislative frameworks that remain the ANC's only family silver after 31 years in power. Laws that were written by men and women who understood the demands of our Constitution, the need 'to heal' and the imperative 'to redress'. And these are the very words the DA finds offensive: heal and redress. If that's not an emergency, I am at a loss. Comrade Leadership, why deploy 31 innocent souls when you already command a Cabinet twice that size? This isn't a participatory democracy; it's a bureaucratic iceberg — 90% protocol, 10% purpose, masking a freeze on real policy action. The absurdity is staggering. Policy inertia and the endless punting of cans down the road of conventions won't win votes, nor will it heal the wounds of the present — let alone those of the past.
