The DA congratulated Ramaphosa on his swearing in as president at Loftus Versveld in Pretoria earlier on Saturday and he wished him well, Maimane said.

"If the president does what is in the interest of South Africa and is genuine about economic reform, he will have the full support of the DA," he said.

Key cabinet changes that would signal a commitment to reform included the economic cluster being reduced to three key ministries to enable more coherent economic policy: finance, state-owned entities, and jobs, and the minister of finance should be committed and authorised to set a debt ceiling and the public enterprises minister should be willing to privatise non-strategic SoEs, such as South African Airways (SAA), and to restructure Eskom to enable a private sector-led transition to cheaper, cleaner energy sources.

Entrepreneurs were the solution, not the problem, and labour legislation, especially that which restricted small business, should be significantly liberalised by the new minister of jobs, who should also be committed to visa reform to boost tourism and investment so that it became easier for critical skills and foreign currency to enter South Africa.

Ramaphosa should appoint a basic education minister committed and strong enough to stand up to the South African Democratic Teachers' Union (Sadtu) and teachers needed to be properly assessed, trained, and incentivised.

The sports ministry should be merged with basic education to achieve bottom-up transformation in sport, while science and technology should be merged with higher education to better foster innovation.

Rather than implementing unaffordable National Health Insurance, government should concentrate on fixing public hospitals, expanding access to primary healthcare clinics, and leveraging the private health sector for maximum public benefit.

Provinces should be empowered to administer their own police forces, because crime-fighting needed urgent localised knowledge and intelligence on the ground. South Africa needed a local government minister who pushed for more devolution of power to cities, be it to run their own railways or to purchase their own electricity directly from suppliers.

State security should have a minister who could professionalise the department and get it focused on ensuring the nation’s security and fighting corruption, rather than on waging factional battles.

Ramaphosa needed to use the opportunity to be honest with the nation about, and explain to people, why populist solutions, no matter how attractive they may appear, would ultimately lead to South Africa’s downfall, as they had done in Zimbabwe, Venezuela, and elsewhere.

Ramaphosa should also convene a summit on race and reconciliation, "so we can find each other and start working together as one nation with one shared future".

"President Ramaphosa will have my full support when he prioritises the national interest over his party’s interest. Beginning with these reforms would be a huge step in the right direction. We wish the president well," Maimane said.

- African News Agency (ANA)