On February 16 2018 — two days after he became SA president — Cyril Ramaphosa said in his first state of the nation address: “This year, we will be initiating measures to set the country on a new path of growth, employment and transformation. We will do this by getting social partners in our country to collaborate in building a social compact on which we will create drivers of economic recovery”.

He talked about the elusive social compact in each of his next four state of the nation addresses in 2019-21. In the 2022 address he said: “We have given ourselves 100 days to finalise a comprehensive social compact to grow our economy, create jobs and combat hunger. To be effective this social compact needs to include every South African and every part of society.” The government then published a disgrace of a document — a framework for a social compact in SA that read like the work of an intern. ..

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