Cape Town - President Cyril Ramaphosa has criticised MPs for using the debate on his State of the Nation Address to as an opportunity to hurl personal insults at him instead of engaging with the substantial issues plaguing South Africa.
Speaking during a hybrid joint sitting of Parliament on Thursday, Ramaphosa lamented that this was happening at the time the country needed all parties to put their heads together to overcome the ravages of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ramaphosa said that while criticism was welcomed, some of the members of Parliament went too far by hurling insults at him.
“Some of the criticisms were laced with insults, personal insults for that matter, which were not necessary,” said Ramaphosa without naming any specific politicians.
Ramaphosa, who was replying to the Sona debate, also said that the government wants to accelerate the vaccine roll-out programme after the first jab was administered to nurse Zoliswa Gidi-Dyosi in Cape Town on Wednesday.
Ramaphosa and Health Minister Zweli Mkhize were also given jabs of the vaccine.
The president said this was the only way to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.
The first batch of 80 000 doses from Johnson & Johnson were delivered this week with more vaccines from other pharmaceutical companies. Mkhize said the one million doses of Astrazeneca would be given to the African Union platform to be distributed to other countries on the continent.
The government also wants to rope in scientists to start working in developing the country’s vaccine.
He has asked Minister of Higher Education and Training and Science and Technology Blade Nzimande to bring scientists together for this task.
He added that the country was on track to revive the economy with the latest data from researchers showing some of the jobs were regained.
But Statistics South Africa would provide a detailed report on the latest data on employment since Covid-19 rocked the country almost a year ago.
Ramaphosa said Eskom remained key to the energy security supply in the country.
It has been split into entities for generation, distribution and transmission.
Political Bureau