One of the widely expected events in the national calendar is the State of the Nation Address by President Jacob Zuma. This occasion invites vibrant debates on the programs of government and the fashion taste of the Members of Parliament. The latter is out of order for a country like ours.
During this occasion, President Zuma will impart key strategic directions for his administration as part of responding to national priorities.
Writing in the Time magazine of 7 December 2009, Joel Klein argues that the media are giving (US president Barack) Obama grief for just about everything. But it’s far too soon to judge his policies.
This follows a battery of media concerns and criticisms about things they thought President Obama would do and not the priorities of his administration.
This is akin to the concerns of the chattering class in our own land, where there so called analysts, journalists and opposition political parties are giving President Jacob Zuma unwarranted grief just about everything.
A look at South Africa’s socio-economic landscape indicates very diverse and different groups of people with both the haves and the have-nots. By default these people would have different needs and expectations.
On the stroke of 2009, the media space and airtime was occupied by the President’s wedding to Thobeka Mabija, early in the year it was the issues of presidential pardons for Eugene De Cock and Schabir Shaik. Currently, his relationship with Sonon Khoza is a serious matter at issue. Even in discussing the pardons, the issue was on two individuals and denied a fair reporting about the pardons. Some in our society attempted to raise questions about whether the “left” was in charge of government or not.
Writing in the Thinker in 2009, Professor Steven Friedman argues that much commentary during 2009 was obsessed with whether “the left” was now in charge of the government.
As the president will take to the podium of the National Assembly, his focus will be on issues including, poverty, crime, health, job creation, education, economic development. He will hit two birds with one stone as he will provide the status report and chart the way forward.
His report will focus on the status of developments on the priorities of government as listed above.


These include:
Health: the government has made welcome progress on the HIV and AIDS front, with effective policy pronouncements about access to treatment, focus on prevention and management of the pandemic. Secondly, he will expound on the status of developing the national Health Insurance (NHI) plan for the country. While South Africa is going through its NHI development and consultation processes, the United States of America is on the stroke of its similar process. Debates around these two processes exhibited very unbalanced interest. In South Africa, they pulled the socialism and communist card at the expense of the poor people the NHI is aimed at helping while in the US the discussions are content based.
Crime: ahead of the elections, the ANC indicated the need to empower the criminal justice system to fight crime. The Police have and continue to be tough on criminals – police now have power to shoot the criminals and that has not gone without challenge from the middle class. One wonders what the real expectation of society is.
Planning and coordination: President Zuma promised a national planning commission. With Minister Manuel at the helm, the commission’s work is afoot. The green paper has been gazetted and the Commission is recruiting both Commissioners and staff for its Secretariat. Part of this was to set up monitoring systems and the presidential hot line. Both these are unfolding – the hotline is the vital tool of his administration as it connects him to the people.
The work of the planning commission will respond to the issues of capacity and limitations of the public service.
The 2008 Tripartite Alliance Summit resolved that: “A planning Commission needs to be set up, headed by the Presidency. This commission should have power to align the work of all departments of government and organs of state to government’s developmental agenda. The Planning Commission would inter alia promote the alignment of government budgets with developmental planning, set broad targets through medium and long term plans and conduct strategic risk assessment.”
Education: the low pass rate as exhibited by the 2009 grade 12 results saw high temperature in the debates about perceived government’s and Teacher Union failure to ensure more student passed their exams. For Zuma’s administration, the results needed to be like this. I am saying because Zuma’s has its back against the wall – to accelerate its service delivery to the people.
Writing in the Thinker, former head of the planning commission in the Presidency, Joel Netshitenze said: “…while we can boast improved access to education, the quality has not been impressive. The establishment of planning capacity and the development of a national vision can change this state of affairs.” The fact that many children failed their examinations does not exhibit a problem at the grade 12 level, it evinces much deeper societal problems that don’t only need government to solve but all role players starting with parents, communities, the media and the civil society.

Job creation: during his maiden speech President Zuma set a target of 500 000 jobs to be created by December 2009. In the middle of the year, an explanation was presented as to why this would no longer be possible. At the centre of that explanation was the impact of the global economic recession. As it is now, we have fewer jobs created.
We should at this point debate the role of the private sector in creating sustainable jobs for our people. Such jobs will help create a safety net for many children whose parents lose jobs frequently.
Poverty: The government has prioritized poverty alleviation. Poverty is rampant in our country. Delivering his 2009 annual Nelson Mandela Lecture in Johannesburg, Professor Muhammad Yunus, said: “We got rid of colonialism, slavery and apartheid – everyone thought it was impossible. Let’s take the next impossible, do it with joy and get it finished and create a world free from poverty. The human journey began in Africa. On behalf of Africa, let’s make South Africa the first country where there is not a single poor person alive and let’s do it fast – in the next 20 years. You are laughing because it seems impossible. After 20 years, let’s say if you can find a single poor person in South Africa then we will give you a million dollars as a reward and nobody will be found. South Africa will be the first place to create a poverty museum. Our children will go there and see what it was like to live in poverty, because by that time there will be no poverty. Let’s make it happen.”

Zuma’s administration is focusing on finalizing the planning commission processes to ensure effective and coordinated planning of all government activities which will ensure accelerated services to the people, it is this new collective planning that will ensure that we take bold steps towards alleviating poverty, defeating crime, creating jobs, creating access to quality and affordable healthcare, improving quality of our public education. His administration will be entering its second year, a year of policy and strategic maturity. This will be the time where the implementation of what was resolved in Polokwane will kick off in earnest.

I suggest that we start looking at what President Zuma said he will do in government and not what does not form part of his responsibility in discharging services to the people. I am not proposing that we stop analyzing the work of government or criticizing it, I am suggesting a coherent debate on the programs of the state and the role many role players have to play in that project.