18 February 2026

Madam Speaker,
Your Excellencies, President Cyril Ramaphosa, Deputy President Paul Mashatile
Honourable Members,
Fellow South Africans,

South Africa stands at a defining point of economic renewal.

After four consecutive quarters of GDP growth, lowest unemployment figure in 5 years, and inflation at its lowest level in twenty years, our country is demonstrating that deliberate policy action produces tangible results.

However, it was Cde Nelson Mandela, the founding father of our democracy, who reminded us:

“After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.”

The State of the Nation Address delivered by the President last week was such a moment — a time to pause and reflect on the road travelled since 2018 when President Ramaphosa took office, to appreciate the achievements that once seemed impossible, and to confront, with honesty and resolve, the hills that still lie ahead.

The successes outlined in the SONA were not accidents of history. The successes reported by the President pre-date the GNU and are the result of deliberate action by the latter part of the 5th, 6th and now 7th Administration to reverse decline, restore institutions, and once again lay the foundations for inclusive growth. Today, South Africa stands on firmer ground than it did a few years ago.

Yet, as Madiba warned us, we dare not linger.

The question before us is not only how to sustain this economic growth but also how to ensure it reaches every corner of our nation. Millions of our people still live with poverty, unemployment, and inequality. For them, the promise of democracy must be felt not in speeches, but in daily life. And in the 21st century, that promise is inseparable from digital inclusion.

Cde President therefore, you dare not linger, the long walk has not ended

We must position technology, the digital economy, and digital infrastructure investment as the primary drivers for inclusive and equitable economic growth.

With less than five years before the horizon of the National Development Plan 2030, the urgency of implementation cannot be overstated. The NDP, our country’s blueprint for a future that works for all, identified information and communication technology as a foundational enabler of economic, social and cultural development — envisioning a dynamic, inclusive information society and a decisive shift toward a knowledge-based economy.

We have seen in word and deed what focused reform and decisive leadership can achieve

The African National Congress acknowledges and welcomes real progress towards the NDP goals:

• The 2022 high-demand spectrum auction raised R14.4 billion and accelerated network investment.
• Last year, Telkom generated more than R500m to the fiscus in dividends
• Mobile data prices declined by over 50% between 2019 and 2023, easing costs for working families.
• 4G coverage now reaches over 98% of the population, while 5G coverage continues to expand rapidly.
• Thousands of public facilities — schools, clinics, and government offices — are now connected through the SA Connect broadband programme. Offering real opportunity and solutions to unemployment; not the MK approac of sending poor children to the killing fields of Ukraine and calling it job creation
• More than 50 data centres have been built and there is commitment of a further R50 billion in digital infrastructure investment to strengthen digital resilience

We further support the commitment to fully digitised government services. We commend the work done by former Minister of Home Affairs, Hon Motsoaledi to roll out digital reforms at Home Affairs including Digital IDs, as well as initiatives towards online motor vehicle licensing, and integrated e-government platforms proposed in Operation Vulindlela’s Digital Transformation Roadmap and the SITA’s MyMzansi App.

These are not mere technical upgrades.
They are instruments of dignity, efficiency, and economic participation.

Through rigorous oversight, Parliament supported and pushed for regulatory reforms that ensure data does not expire but rather mandate rollover of unused data bundles, sequential usage from oldest to newest, and depletion notifications at 50%, 80%, and 100%. This is a victory that this Parliament fully owns aligned with the call that #DataMustFall and a tangible intervention in the cost of living.

This SONA has underscored the transformative role of artificial intelligence and data analytics in strengthening governance, improving service delivery, and combating illicit economic activity. We must move with urgency. The global AI race is accelerating, and South Africa must be a rule-maker, not a rule-taker.

Our greatest risk is not lack of vision.
It is fragmentation.

We cannot afford a digital future built on duplication, wastage, and vanity projects that consume public funds while communities remain unconnected.

South Africa needs and demands

• Congruence — alignment across departments and all three spheres of government
• Shared digital infrastructure
• Coordinated cybersecurity
• Interoperable systems
• Integrated digital skills development including infusing Science and Technology including AI and 4IR innovations in curriculum at basic and higher education to expand future proof skills advancement
• Digital skills must be central to this economic expansion. As South Africans, we cannot claim to be preparing our youth for the future while our education system remains anchored in the past. We must expand access to tertiary education through online and hybrid learning ensuring that no student gets left behind
• Support for local innovation and platforms
• Measurable outcomes for every public rand spent

We must move beyond scattered initiatives toward a single, coherent National Digital Strategy.

One vision.
One direction.
One coordinated effort to build an inclusive digital nation.

Without coherence, we build systems that do not speak to each other, platforms that do not serve the people, and infrastructure that does not reach the last mile.

Madame Speaker,

South Africa has chosen the path of a developmental state — a state that does not retreat from the economy, but actively shapes it in the public interest. No nation has built a successful digital economy by abandoning its strategic capabilities. Countries that lead in connectivity and digital innovation do so through deliberate alignment between the state and industry.

China, for example, did not achieve digital transformation by chance. It deliberately supported national telecomms champions such as China Mobile and China Telecom through public-sector contracts, coordinated infrastructure rollout, and long-term policy certainty. These companies operate commercially and compete in the market, yet they are anchored in national development priorities — expanding rural connectivity, lowering costs, and safeguarding strategic data.

South Africa must show the same resolve in strengthening its state-owned entities in the technology and communications space. Our state-owned entities such as Telkom, Sentech, Broadband Infraco and SITA are not relics.

They are instruments of transformation.

With proper governance, adequate and committed investment, clear mandates and disciplined implementation, they can advance broad-based black economic empowerment, expand affordable connectivity, support national data sovereignty and local innovation and serve communities the market ignores

To do this, we must be unapologetic about guaranteed set-asides on public-sector contracts for them. Government is the largest single purchaser of telecom and digital services in the country. Our military and other national security contracts must be championed by our own state owned entities. South African companies must deliver smart city infrastructure projects and e-government platforms and data services as well as rural connectivity programmes. Such an approach creates stable revenue streams and economies of scale. These companies must be at the centre of our country’s digital industrial policy.

To suggest that the market alone can deliver universal access ignores the lived reality of communities that remain unconnected because they are not profitable. A developmental state does not crowd out private enterprise; it crowds in investment, reduces risk, and ensures that growth is inclusive rather than exclusive. Strategic state capacity enables competition; it does not replace it.

This is not about ideology.
It is about equity.

Honourable Mulder, when we speak of equity, we do not speak of sameness; we speak of justice. Equality assumes that all begin from the same starting line, while equity recognises the deep structural imbalances created by centuries of colonial dispossession and apartheid oppression. To call for “equal treatment” in a profoundly unequal society is to ignore history and to deny lived reality. It is not benevolence we seek from any group, nor permission to govern or succeed — the democratic mandate of this country rests with its people as a whole.

The Freedom Front Plus, by its own posture and policy positions, continues to foreground the protection of historic privilege rather than the dismantling of structural inequality. One cannot credibly invoke unity while resisting the symbolic and material steps necessary to build a shared national identity. The rejection of the renaming of Graaff-Reinetin honour of Robert Sobukwe — a son of this soil and a towering figure in the struggle for human dignity — illustrates a reluctance to embrace the inclusive historical narrative that our democracy demands.

True nation-building requires honesty about the past, commitment to redress in the present, and a shared vision for a future in which no group’s prosperity rests upon another’s deprivation. That is the equity we seek:

Madame Speaker,

Digital sovereignty is not a luxury or an abstract concept. It is a necessity.

If we do not control our data, we do not control our future.
If we do not build local platforms, we do not build local wealth.
If we do not invest in domestic digital capacity, we export opportunity.

We must ensure that the value generated by South Africans benefits South Africans.

To achieve digital sovereignty requires:

• Building and owning sovereign technology whether it be geo-satellites, LEO satellites or strengthening local cloud and data hosting capacity
• We must develop and enforce data protection, privacy laws and act decisively against online harms including cyber bullying and the invasion by deepfakes, misinformation and disinformation
• We must introduce fair taxation of digital multinationals and regulate social and online media including podcasts
• Public procurement must prioritises local innovation and at all times support South African digital platforms and content industries

This is not isolationism.
It is strategic participation on fair and equitable terms.

Technology is not about cables and towers.
It is about a learner in a rural village accessing the same knowledge as a learner in Sandton.

It is about a matriculant that can access tertiary education unhindered by challenges of brick and mortar institutions that cannot meet demand

It is about a grandmother applying for her grant without travelling for hours.
It is about a young entrepreneur in a township reaching global markets from a mobile phone.
It is about persons with disabilities accessing services with dignity and independence.

An inclusive information society restores dignity.
It expands opportunity.
It gives voice to the marginalised.

A nation that works for all. This is the South Africa we must build.