The sad state we're in

President Jacob Zuma steps onto the podium in the House of Assembly tonight to deliver a State of the Nation address when South Africa is at its lowest economic ebb since he came to power.

A nation that has listened for years to presidential assurances about a better future now finds itself in perilous territory.

Falling growth levels, a disastrous platinum-mining strike and investment status downgrades from the world's ratings agencies should weigh heavily on Zuma as he tries to convince the nation that his government has a clear vision of a way out of this sorry state of affairs.

Zuma is under pressure also on the political front - to deliver on promises to ANC voters who recently returned him to power.

Yesterday, leading political analysts singled out five burning issues the president must address:

• Strong leadership on the strike, and an acknowledgement of how much it has cost the country;
• The need to get the state bureaucracy to do its job properly;
• Implementation of the National Development Plan, showing a credible commitment to this - not just another vague, empty promise;
• Proof that the government really does want to fight corruption; and
• Indications that the president and the government are truly in charge of the country.

Standard & Poor's has cut its rating of South Africa to its lowest "investment grade", making it harder and more expensive to raise the trillions of rands needed to implement the NDP.

Fitch, another ratings agency, changed its South African outlook from stable to negative, making a future downgrade more likely.

"S&P, like Fitch, has serious doubts about whether the government is committed to the necessary reforms [particularly in terms of labour relations] to raise the country's growth rate," said Dave Mohr, chief investment strategist for Old Mutual Wealth.

"Both ratings agencies believe the policies of the new administration will be broadly in line with past policies," he said.

For five years Zuma has made promises about the creation of jobs that have come to nought. Unemployment still hovers above 25% officially, and more than half of the youth are unemployed.

The latest quarterly labour force surveys by Statistics SA show that the number of people who have given up on finding work is climbing at an alarming rate.

Political analyst and professor Susan Booysen said time was running out for Zuma, in his second term as president, and he now needed to show leadership.

All of the State of the Nation speeches delivered by Zuma had sounded the same, she said.

"There is very little excitement that we have come to associate with the State of the Nation statements. I have never walked away with a sense that this is a government in charge. I never felt assured that Zuma was completely in charge," said Booysen.

Pilot projects to boost rural development and improve access to healthcare through the National Health Insurance were yet to be implemented on a broader scale, she said.

Zuma should provide more concrete evidence of implementation of the NDP, she said

"The NDP really is a patchwork; some of bright colours and others are made of 10 pieces of fabric."

Economist Iraj Abedian, director of Pan African Capital Holding Group, said the mining strike had been allowed to drag on for too long.

"It's an indictment of the national government's failure to understand the situation. [It] needs to come up with a response that is commensurate with the gravity of the situation . we've gone beyond the trace of a national crisis," he said.

The director of the Institute for Accountability in Southern Africa, Paul Hoffman, said corruption had not been effectively tackled and this needed to be a focus for the government in future.

He said unless South Africa invested in a specialised, properly trained, effective and independent unit that was serious about tackling graft in the public service it could not say it was serious about eradicating corruption.

"As the Constitutional Court has already said, corruption threatens to fell at the knees all we hold dear in our country," Hoffman said.

Independent political analyst Somadoda Fikeni said Zuma's speech would probably focus on the NDP as the benchmark for planning. "The main challenge however is the state's capacity, and he will have to speak to that."

Zuma might "come out very strong" on land restitution, indicating a shift to the "second-phase transition" policy during his second term as president.

Zuma would also speak about fighting corruption, job creation and direct foreign investment, Fikeni said.