Silent Cyril Ramaphosa's GBVF plan: Audits are not action - IOL

President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed South Africans on Tuesday evening on government’s response to gender-based violence and femicide (GBVF), as well as investigations into the murders of women in and around Ekurhuleni.

President Cyril Ramaphosa was silent for weeks while the bodies of murdered women kept being discovered in Ekurhuleni. For weeks while the bodies piled up, while women were being slaughtered, and while the rest of the country took to the streets in protest of not only the killings, but the ongoing scourge of gender-based violence and the pandemic of femicide, Cyril was silent. 

We looked for leadership from Number 1. We got crickets. 

Now Silent Cyril has crawled out of the woodwork with a four-point action plan. 

First up, Silent Cyril wants an audit. An audit! Within 60 days, Ramaphosa wants government to identify unresolved cases, cases awaiting forensic evidence, identified suspects who have not been arrested, and cases facing unreasonable investigative or prosecutorial delays.

Recovery plans for priority and stalled cases are expected within 90 days.

Ramaphosa also ordered a 60-day plan to tackle forensic backlogs and instructed municipalities to conduct safety audits to identify places where women are vulnerable, including areas affected by poor lighting, unsafe public spaces and infrastructure failures.

How many more women will die before the completion of the audit?

How many more women must die before real action is taken?

And to be fair, Mr President, it's not like this is the first opportunity you've had to act. I've pointed out before that not only is this not your first rodeo, it's been seven years of rodeos and still more and more women are being killed every year.

Just audits as part of a four point plan. Might as well tackle this crisis with vibes. 

Point one is the audit of unresolved cases and identify pain points and bottlenecks in investigations. There's a further 30 day deadline on top of the 60-day audit deadline to submit detailed recovery plans. So, we have to wait 90 days for women to stop being killed?

Point two is to tackle forensic backlogs. But how do you fast-track forensic investigations when there aren't even enough rape kits in the hands of police officers to gather forensic, biological evidence in the first place? In May 2026, IOL reported there was a critical shortage of both adult and child sexual offences evidence collection kits, but this is not the first time IOL has reported on this kind of shortage. Back in 2021, former minister of police Bheki Cele came under fire for claiming there were enough rape kits in circulation, despite the Cape Argus reporting that some police stations contacted confirmed this was not the case, and in some instances, did not know what rape kits were. How do you tackle a forensics backlog when you can't even be sure forensic evidence is being effectively collected? SAPS has since said there are enough rape kits, but hey, it's not like the police play open cards with South Africans. 

I've pointed out before that SAPS is no longer disaggregating crime data, so we can't keep track of the number of women among the thousands of people killed every quarter. Nor can we track the number of children murdered. Cyril wants an audit, South Africans need the truth. 

Point number three is to make communities safer. I'm sorry, but in the 32 years Cyril's party has governed this country, the delivery of safety-related services like public lighting, the clearing of overgrown vegetation, securing parks and public spaces, and just generally being there for people has fallen by the wayside. Yes, these are municipal-level competencies that need to be dealt with at a local government level, but they operate within a national structure. And you are the president of the whole country. Cyril's also given the municipalities 90 days to fix this. Another audit and action deadline set, dololo action taken. 

Point number four is cracking down on alcohol-related violence. Another action plan is required within 60 days. 

Sooo... less of a four point action plan, and more of to do list for others to complete. 

Cyril can't act until others do his homework for him. 

The Ministry of Women, Children and People with Disabilities was first established by President Jacob Zuma in 2009. The department was later named the Department of Women (2014-2019), this time not within its own ministry, but situated within the Presidency. The government said at the time this move was to elevate its coordination power. It's becoming evident that it is probably because our government doesn't really value women enough to give them their own ministry. 

In 2019, Cyril reorganised the department again, naming it The Department of Women, Youth, and Persons with Disabilities – still within the Presidency. The minister responsible for this portfolio is Sindisiwe Chikunga.

This was also the year GBVF was declared a national crisis, and a year after the Presidential Summit of GBV. Now, declaring something a national crisis doesn't necessarily unlock additional legal or prosecutorial powers, nor does it automatically unlock additional emergency funding. 

But in November 2025, Ramaphosa declared gender-based violence and femicide a national disaster. This was supposed to change the game. 

And what has been stopping Minister Chikunga from enacting government's GBVF mandate? That's right: funding. 

Earlier in September Chikunga told a parliamentary portfolio committee meeting that "the mandate remained largely unfunded", according to a report by News24. 

So women in South Africa are not only being failed by the men of South Africa and the President of the Republic, but even by the minister responsible for their well-being. 

The message from South Africans has been clear. We want action. We want arrests. We want prosecution. We want convictions. We want long jail sentences. We want action.

Women want not to be killed, not to be raped, not to be threatened, not to be coerced, not to feel unsafe. 

What we don't want is a president who looks at a crisis of this enormity, and says "someone should really do something". You! You are the someone. You do something. 

Cyril Ramaphosa crawled out from under his infamous Phala Phala couch not to take action, but to ask other people to do an audit to establish what should be done, while not doing anything to equip his ministers to actually get things done. 

When you experience a crisis at work, it's all hands on deck. Revenue falling? Losing customers? Product failures? As a boss, you get stuck in. You take charge. You lead the interventions. You take accountability. You come up with solutions. You take action. 

Cyril, South African men are killing between 11 and 15 women a day. And you've stood in front of us for seven years saying it's a problem and something should be done about it. 

Your family meeting last night might as well have been an email.

And even then, tell us when you've actually done something. 

* Lance Witten is the Editor of IOL.