Cape Town - President Cyril Ramaphosa has promised to turn things around in the country, including fighting crime, corruption and other social ills.
Ramaphosa, who was addressing people at a presidential imbizo in Mangaung, Free State, on Saturday, said despite many challenges facing the country they were going to address them.
This came after dozens of members of the community from different parts of the Free State listed complaints to Ramaphosa and his ministers.
The community complained about crime, unemployment and the lack of service delivery.
But Ramaphosa, after initially calling individual ministers to respond to the communities, said they will get this country right.
He said he heard complaints about lack of service delivery.
“Our meeting today will lead to a number of changes, as you have heard. We are continuing to work to correct the many things that have gone wrong in our country, including things like corruption, criminality, state capture and all those issues. We will get this country right. I call on you as our communities to work with us because as we work together we will be able to turn things around,” said Ramaphosa.
#PresidentialImbizoFS : Community members of Van Stadensrus, Dewetsdorp, Wepener, Thaba 'Nchu, Botshabelo, and Bloemfontein in Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality raised their service delivery concerns during the #PresidentialImbizo in the Free State. 📷 @Kopano Tlape/ @GCISMedia pic.twitter.com/qdhpOrF9b4
— IOL Politics (@IOLPolitics) April 9, 2022
He said the economy of the Free State was intertwined with the economies of other provinces like the North West, Gauteng and the Northern Cape.
“We want to tie all these economies together to make sure we extract as much benefit to the people of this province as possible,” he said.
He added that they will deal with the issue of unemployment in the province.
“The key issue we are going to address is the issue of employment. Many of you have raised the challenge of jobs, whether you are from small towns, whether you are from Mangaung in Bloemfontein, jobs is the main challenge that we are focusing on as the government,” said Ramaphosa.
The government will also address issues of crime, sewage spillages, water supply and cleaning up the towns.
They also want to ensure there was proper infrastructure, he said.