State of the Nation: Five key issues President Zuma must address

Introduction

Thursday evening marks President Zuma's second State of the Nation address. Since assuming office last May, Jacob Zuma's term has been characterised by lots of words and little action. It is imperative that President Zuma, in his second State of the Nation address, starts providing strong leadership and begins indicating how his administration is going to put real work and commitment behind the many promises it has made. In this regard, the Democratic Alliance believes that there are five key issues the President must address on Thursday and on which he must provide concrete solutions and targets against which his administration can be held accountable.

1. Job Creation

Problem: The global recession has dealt a massive blow to South Africa's already high unemployment rate, with close to a million South Africans losing their jobs. In last year's State of the Nation address, the President promised that the ANC government would create 500 000 jobs by the end of the year, which clearly was not achieved. Recently, the President made yet another vague promise of creating 4 million jobs by 2014. However, it appears these will be short term working opportunities created by the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) and not real jobs that will stimulate the economy and will lift South Africans out of poverty.

Solution: Considering the fact that the President failed to deliver on his first promise, he needs to explain in detail his latest promise of creating 4 million jobs by 2014 and must:

• Indicate whether these are real jobs that are long-term, that will stimulate the economy, will provide people with much needed skills and are not just short-term EPWP work opportunities;
• State unequivocally that the ANC government is not considering banning labour broking which would have a devastating effect on our already high unemployment rate; and
• Admit that government's restrictive labour policies and legislation have been major contributory factors to the country's chronic unemployment rate and then must commit his administration to solving this problem.

2. Education

Problem: Last year's dismal matric results have confirmed that our education system is in crisis.  The country's matric pass rate has dropped by 10% over the last ten years, and South African learners lag behind the rest of the world when it comes to numeracy and literacy skills. The fact that our education system is unable to deliver educated and highly skilled individuals, who can make a positive contribution to our economy, has had a devastating effect on South Africa's economic growth and inequality rates.

Solution: While the DA welcomes the Minister of Basic Education's recent announcement that the OBE system will be scrapped, this will not solve the current crisis. President Zuma must:

• Admit that our education system is in crisis and that it needs to be overhauled immediately;
• Specify how his administration plans to hold incompetent, underperforming teachers and education officials accountable by introducing performance-orientated strategies; and
• State unequivocally that his administration will not tolerate schools being used by ruling party members and by unions to further their own narrow political interests at the expense of learners;

 3. State of Service Delivery

Problem: President Zuma's first few months in office has been plagued by service delivery protests. It is clear that the majority of South Africans who are living in dire poverty are tired of the ANC government making promises, which are never delivered. The ruling party's policy of cadre deployment and its drive to centralise power at a national level and at the expense of best democratic practice has devastated local government and are the main factors hampering the delivery of basic and secondary services including water, electricity and housing.

Solutions: The DA welcomes President Zuma's recent statement regarding cadre deployment that "municipal employees should not hold leadership positions in political parties" and that his party would "tighten its deployment procedures" to make it more "objective and transparent". However, while this change in attitude is promising it is imperative that President Zuma:

• Provides a detailed action plan of how government plans to improve the delivery of basic services providing clear targets for the provision of services which his administration can be held accountable to;
• Indicates exactly how the ruling party plans to change its deployment policies as well as stipulating how incompetent and corrupt officials will be rooted out of local government and will be held accountable for their failings;
• Admits that increased centralisation hampers the delivery of basic services and reiterates his government's commitment to upholding the constitutional independence of the three spheres of government.

4. Wasteful Expenditure

Problem: President Zuma's administration has been characterised by its excessive and wasteful spending of taxpayer's money. The DA's wasteful expenditure monitor currently stands at R606 million. However, despite the economic downturn and the fact that most South Africans live in dire poverty, President Zuma has remained largely silent on cabinet ministers buying fancy cars and the executive and government departments splashing out on travel, accommodation and lavish parties. While an inter-ministerial task team was set-up to come up with austerity measures for government to adopt, nothing has been produced so far.

Solution: It is imperative that President Zuma states categorically that his administration's excessive and wasteful expenditure is highly inappropriate and that it must end. The President must:

• Announce a concrete set of austerity measures that will be adopted by the ANC government immediately;
• Set clear targets that cabinet and government departments have to meet when it comes to reducing their expenditure and;
• Indicate what action will be taken against cabinet ministers and government officials if these targets are not met.

5. The ANC's failing developmental state

Problem: The ANC government is damaging South Africa's economy, is limiting choice and is preventing growth through its pursuance of its warped conception of a developmental state. The ANC's much vaunted developmental state is unraveling because it is defined by a set of ideological ideas and premises poorly thought through and because the ANC is obsessed with power and control which has distorted the notion of a developmental state and has turned it into a proxy for hegemony. Parastatals lie at the heart of the ANC's developmental state model. Cumulatively, the extent of mismanagement and corruption at parastatals has cost the South African public almost one quarter of a trillion rand in the past four years, which could rather have been used for the provision of basic services. Yet, this money has done nothing to solve the problems that exist at many parastatals such as Eskom, the SABC, Transnet and SAA and it is the ordinary South African that continues to suffer as a result.

Solution: It is imperative that President Zuma:

• Acknowledges that the ANC government's developmental state is failing and that is has a devastating effect on our economy;
• Undertakes to partially or fully privatise a number of the country's key parastatals including Eskom, Transnet, SAA and Armscor and;
• State unambiguously that the ANC Youth League's recent calls to nationalise mines and the Reserve Bank is not the policy of the ANC government.

Conclusion

President Zuma has failed to provide strong, effective leadership over the last year and has instead chosen to remain silent on many of the critical issues facing the country. It is imperative that he addresses these five key issues in order to demonstrate firstly, that he and his administration are serious about improving the lives of ordinary South Africans and secondly, that he is committed to holding his cabinet accountable for its actions and failures.

Statement issued by Athol Trollip, MP, Democratic Alliance parliamentary leader, February 9 2010

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