Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Mmusi Maimane on Tuesday accused President Cyril Ramaphosa of doing no more than watching as the economy deteriorates and unemployment rises.
In the debate on Ramaphosa's state-of-the-nation address last week, Maimane mocked the president for repeatedly using the phrase "watch this space".
He charged: "That is all you've been doing for the past decade and it's all you've been doing for your entire first year in office. Watching and waiting. You've been watching this space as youth unemployment grew to include more than half our young people.
"'You've been watching this space as Eskom fell apart, threatening to plunge our country into a crisis we may never recover from."
Maimane said South Africans were saddled with a government that cannot and will not act while the looting of state resources continues.
"Mr President, it is clear that they are in charge, and not you."
EFF leader Julius Malema continued on a similar vein, criticising Ramaphosa's announcement that Eskom will be unbundled and split into three separate entities - "generation, transmission and distribution - under Eskom Holdings".
"You will soon become the enemy of the people and workers if you go ahead with some of the proposals. Eskom will not be privatised and there are no retrenchments that are going to take place," Malema warned Ramaphosa, while at the same time accusing the president of using Eskom to further the business interests of friends and allies.
He also questioned why the President persisted with controversial Environmental Affairs Minister Novula Mokonyane who he labelled as corrupt, much to the annoyance of the speaker of the house. She warned him not to continue down that road, but Malema shot back that Mokonyane does not belong in Cabinet ... unless she has something on the President. - ANA
