When Rory McIlroy won back-to-back Masters titles this week, he did not produce a miracle round out of nowhere. He closed out his victory on the back of a long game built on years of adjustment and pressure-tested execution. South Africa does not lack for long-term plans, the problem is that unlike McIIroy, all too often those plans are ignored or there is a failure to chip away consistently at the bottlenecks that decide whether these plans deliver successful results.

The country’s economy is still growing too slowly to materially reduce endemic levels of unemployment and poverty. National Treasury expects growth of 1.6% in 2026 and explicitly says faster reform in electricity, transport and water is needed to unlock investment and jobs. In other words, the macro problem is already diagnosed but we are stuck at the execution phase.

The sugar sector is a clear case in point. Government and industry have now moved into Phase Two of the Sugar Value chain Master Plan, again rightly positioning diversification as the central solution. The industry supports over one million rural livelihoods, yet remains exposed to heavily subsidised sugar imports, rising input costs and a narrow revenue base. The diversification pathways in biofuels, bioplastics, and expanded export markets have been on the table for years.

But this only underscores the core problem: the strategy is well understood and repeatedly restated, while the enabling decisions, from ITAC pricing frameworks to regulatory certainty and market access continue to lag. South Africa is heading in the right direction but moving too slowly on the decisions and investments that could make diversification a reality.

The same execution gap is evident in biosecurity, where delays now carry urgent economic consequences. Foot-and-mouth disease continues to disrupt cattle and dairy production, tightening supply and adding to already rising meat and dairy prices. The President and his cabinet acknowledged the risk and have taken steps including vaccine imports and restarting local production, but rollout at farm level has been slow and uneven.

Cattle, dairy and sugar industries underpin rural economies, jobs and export revenue. Without a rapid, science-based mass vaccination programme and coordinated disease management, the country risks compounding supply shocks, driving further price inflation and destabilising sectors that are already under strain.

All the while, President Cyril Ramaphosa continues to speak the language of plans for investment pointing this week to R890 billion in new pledges and a five-year target of R3 trillion. Nothing new in this rhetoric which will only ramp up in election year. It is the gap between conference-stage plans and on-the-ground execution that makes this a real-world problem for South Africans.

This is where strategic communications and advocacy matter. In South Africa, they are often the mechanism that keeps pressure on specific regulatory, parliamentary and administrative choke points long enough to force movement.

South Africa has been waiting for its breakthrough as long as McIlroy waited for his Masters. The difference is that without the same discipline, consistency and follow-through, we will be waiting a lot longer for our own winning round.

– Victoria Tompkins
Account Manager