Ramaphosa likens the National Dialogue to "a moving caravan"

President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday compared the National Dialogue to a moving caravan and called on everyone to be part of it.

Responding to oral questions in the National Assembly, Ramaphosa said what happened when the national convention was held in August was quite a moving process where many South Africans expressed a deep yearning to be in conversation with each other.

He said the National Dialogue was something that should never be dismissed out of hand.

“It is not something that can be called a misnomer. It is something that happened that's going to lead to the honing of national dialogue through the length and the breadth of the country.”

Ramaphosa also said the number of organisations that attended represented the South African society.

“So let us give this whole process a chance, opportunity to progress, rather than stand on the sidelines and criticise. It is better to be inside the tent rather than to be outside and doing something inside the tent. So let us all be in this national dialogue tent. It is almost like a caravan. It is moving, and we call on everyone to be part of it.”

He told the MPs that the outcomes of national dialogue will be determined by the citizens of the country.

“They are not going to be determined by the President nor anyone of us sitting here. The national dialogue should be seen as a structured process where the citizens of our country, together with political actors, civil society and other stakeholders, come together to deliberate on the future of their own country, to debate on the South Africa they want.”

Ramaphosa also stated that over the next few months, South Africans will be engaging in conversations on the issues that concern them deeply after the convention had brought together around 30 different sectors in society.

He described the first convention as a great success where delegates endorsed the need for the value of a national dialogue.

“Delegates to the first national convention expressed their support for a representative steering committee to drive the national dialog process now, over the next three weeks, organisations involved in the 32 sectors have been meeting amongst themselves to nominate their own representatives to the steering committee.”

Nominations will now be compiled and collated by the Eminent Persons Group to ensure inclusivity and representativity before the steering committee was constituted.

“Once established, the steering committee will work together with the Inter-Ministerial Committee chaired by the Deputy President, and with the advise of the Eminent Persons Group to coordinate public dialogues across the country.

“Let us be clear, the steering committee will be led by the citizens of our country, giving credence to our intention that this must be citizen led whilst governments.”

However, DA chief whip George Michalakis said the National Dialogue was a failure as the key foundation withdrew from it.

In his response, Ramaphosa said he did not want to get into the politics of who withdrew and who stayed.

He recalled the Convention for Democratic South Africa for peace summit was boycotted by some organisations in the 1990s, but it went ahead and helped to bring down the levels of violence in the country.

Ramaphosa said the national Dialogue was going to be taken forward by those people who believed it should be theirs.

“All we will do as government will play a supportive role of financing… Whether people like it or not, and those who may have an inclination to now want to be part of it and join in, I'm told that they will always find the door open and the caravan will stop for a while to allow them to climb on, and then it will continue moving on.”

mayibongwe.maqhina@inl.co.za