The freedom we enjoy today was not handed to us — Ramaphosa

President Cyril Ramaphosa marked Freedom Day with a firm defence of SA’s democratic gains, pointing to student funding, healthcare reform and land redistribution as evidence of progress.

“The freedom we enjoy today was not handed to us – it was fought for by our people and secured forever by our constitution,” he said.

Delivering his keynote address in Bloemfontein on Monday, Ramaphosa said since the dawn of our democracy the country had worked to expand access to quality health care for all.

“We have built clinics and hospitals, provided free health care to pregnant women and young children, reduced child mortality and increased life expectancy,” he said.

“The National School Nutrition Programme feeds more than 9-million learners every single day. Through the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, we have made tertiary education accessible to students from low-income households.”

He said the government was also working to establish the National Health Insurance – NHI – to ensure equal access to quality health care regardless of a person’s ability to pay.

The country also had broad-based black economic empowerment policies to expand the participation of black South Africans, women and persons with disability in the economy, Ramaphosa said.

In addition, SA had begun to redress the economic injustices of the past, expanding ownership, control and management of the economy beyond a privileged few.

These, however, were not enough, Ramaphosa bemoaned.

He said the country had dedicated greater resources and effort to tackling organised crime, gangsterism, gender-based violence and other forms of violent crime.

“We are reforming and strengthening the criminal justice system, rooting out corruption and building a police service and a prosecuting authority in which people can have trust and confidence,” he said.

Some of the challenges he said needed to be overcome include failing water infrastructure, collapsing municipalities and deteriorating services.

This was because they directly affected the quality of daily life and were not mere inconveniences, he said.

“Our resolve to strengthen local government provides an opportunity to transform municipalities, making them better run, more efficient and more responsive to the needs of our people.

“This is important because the truest test of our democracy is whether freedom translates into material change in people’s lives.”

He added that dignity started with the most basic things – a roof over one’s head, clean running water and reliable electricity.

He said freedom was about the ability to go to a clinic when one is sick, to have a school for one’s children, and being provided for in old age.

“Our future will not be built by forgetting where we come from, but by acting with courage on what we have learned – united by one constitution, bound by a collective responsibility to each other, and in pursuit of a shared destiny.”

Sowetan