The Significance of the State of the Nation Address (SONA)

The State of the Nation Address takes place this week Thursday, the 10th of February. The address is given by the President in the evening from the Parliament Buildings in Cape Town. However, this year following a fire in the National Assembly Chamber in December – where the event normally takes place from, it was announced that the event will be moved to the Cape Town City Hall, with a lesser amount of attendees, only 300 MP`s and 70 guests. The City Hall is an iconic building from whose balcony Nelson Mandela delivered his historic speech after the apartheid regime released him from prison in 1990.
SONA is a political statement of the President that sets out a social contract that seeks to embrace the concerns and views of various constituencies that constitute the fabric of our nation.

In that, it is a non-partisan address that maps a holistic pathway to the future. It is this contract, informed by a range of national priorities, that sets our country’s public discourse that urges the public to enter into a profound and ongoing dialogue on various policy matters for the good of our civilisation. It is this social pact that also serves as a barometer to judge the performance of the state in the coming year.

For instance, SONA is closely watched by foreign investors for its assessment of our country’s gains or challenges. They use it to deduce whether there is any shift in our country’s economic policy and whether South Africa’s economic policies are still in harmony with its economic interests. As such, SONA often determines investors’ appetite for South African markets.
On the legislative front, Parliament determines its legislative priorities in the coming year on the basis of the State of the Nation Address (SONA). It also uses the prescripts of SONA as a law-making framework to advance our country’s developmental agenda as enshrined in the National Development Plan (NDP), and also as an oversight instrument to hold the Executive accountable.

To live up to this expectation, Parliament has ensured that this event becomes a public event. Part of its broader public participation process involves the use of various forms of communication, such as radio, television and social media, to advance this objective and ensure better access for all.

Of all communication platforms, radio has been identified as the most effective mass communication outlet that reaches the widest possible South African audience in all the 11 languages in all the nine provinces. As a result, the Parliamentary Communication Services (PCS) uses 18 South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) radio stations and 60 community radio stations as central platforms for information dissemination and calls for public participation in the build-up to SONA.
The State of the Nation Address (SONA) traditionally takes place in Parliament in February and is attended by the three arms of the state: the executive, the legislature and the judiciary.

The content of the address is the sole responsibility of the executive because it is the executive that has a mandate to run the country in accordance with the prescripts of the Constitution.