ACTIONSA has scored the Government of National Unity (GNU) a dismal E for its performance on its first anniversary.
The party evaluated six thematic key performance areas, which include enhancing infrastructure to facilitate efficient trade and transport, improving basic service delivery, ensuring quality education for all, and promoting law and order to uphold a just society.
ActionSA Chief Whip Athol Trollip told a media briefing on Tuesday, 17 June, that their scorecard is an evidence-based assessment.
"To do this, ActionSA in Parliament developed our GNU Performance Tracker, a comprehensive index designed to monitor and hold accountable the GNU. Drawing on data from sources such as StatsSA and official parliamentary replies, the tracker benchmarks performance against government targets, international best practices, and ActionSA policy positions," said Trollip.
He said the tracker empowers the public, not just Parliament, to see clearly where the GNU is succeeding and failing.
"This is our concrete contribution, as principled, constructive opposition, to enhancing transparency, accountability, and public participation," he said.
Trollip said while isolated pockets of improvement may be cited in certain areas, they have yielded little to no tangible impact on the prevailing socio-economic conditions in South Africa.
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He emphasised that every day, ordinary South Africans bear witness to the reality that life has not improved.
"Over the past week, as we engaged with people across the country, their lived experiences told a powerful and consistent story. From rural villages to urban centres, from Cape Town to Limpopo, from students to small business owners, the message was clear. The GNU has failed to meet the expectations of the people and has left behind a deep sense of disappointment," said Trollip.
He said while there's some optimism to be drawn from the idea of political cooperation across party lines within the GNU, the reality remains that cooperation without reform is ultimately meaningless.
Trollip said South Africa continues to be plagued by deep-rooted governance failures.
He said: "ActionSA has demonstrated that, by nearly every metric, the Government of National Unity (GNU) has failed to deliver meaningful reform. The consequence of this failure is a country caught in the grip of stagnation and regression rather than progress, growth and measurable improvement.
"It is on this basis that ActionSA assigns the GNU an overall grade of E, a clear reflection of poor performance and a missed opportunity to chart a new course for the country."
He pointed out that salaries, staff and related perks for newly appointed ministers and deputy ministers alone in the bloated Cabinet have increased the Cabinet's budget by almost R250 million each year.
Trollip called this an "outrageous financial burden" placed on already overburdened taxpayers.
