President Cyril Ramaphosa says Friday’s signing of the Social Sector Framework Agreement with civil society is a major milestone in addressing the challenges facing ordinary South Africans. Ramaphosa was speaking at the Presidential Social Sector Summit, which has been held for the past two days in Boksburg, east of Johannesburg.
The summit is the first of its kind and was first discussed during the President’s 2018 State of the Nation Address.
“In doing so, we are creating a more comprehensive and inclusive framework for cooperation that recognizes but also supports and empowers civil society, and for me that is what was so important about this summit, because it creates a basis for us to develop a strong state – civil society partnership to solve some of the problems facing our country, poverty, inequality, employment and deepening democratic participation”.
The President thanked public organizations for the role they played in the fight against the coronavirus.
“With our country and the world now in the process of recovery, I want to thank and salute civil society organizations for their role in the national effort to contain and overcome the pandemic. There are not enough words to describe the pride and gratitude we felt as a country to see our resilient and dedicated NGOs serving the people of South Africa in those difficult days.”
Disabling Kagiso
Ramaphosa says an imbizo will be convened this weekend between the government and the Kagisa community west of Johannesburg. It is designed to investigate issues of illegal mining and crime in this area.
He addressed the loss of life and damage to infrastructure that has occurred in the past few days in Kagiso as well as in Thembis.
“There are quite a few illegal mining communities in the country where Zama Zamas are active and all I can say is that the Commissioner of Police together with the Minister have set up teams to deal with this issue of illegal mining and fighting the Zama Zamas and the most illegal activities they engage in, especially terrorizing our communities, we will put an end to it.”
On Thursday, the police destroyed the locations of the zama zamas operation:
