Among some of the the many decisions and pronouncements made in the past 170 days of the Zuma administration, South Africans have witnessed an increase of the cabinet, the reshuffling of ministerial clusters with the promise of better coordination, and more political appointments of comrades and allies in key government positions.

With the country's economy still in a recession, the new Ministers, Premiers and MEC's have gone on to splurge on luxury vehicles and accommodation in 5 star hotels.

The Congress of the People believes that the state of our nation is far from promising, considering some of the decisions, actions and pronouncements made so far by our government.

COPE on the State of our Economy

While we acknowledge that the global economic crisis has far reaching effects for us as a country, the Congress of the People believes that the current government policies are prudent enough. All they need is proper implementation and continuation to see us through this crisis.

However, what we view as the shift to the extreme left and the undue influence of COSATU is a worrying trend that must concern all South Africans who voted for consistency and stability.

The discontinuation of Tito Mboweni's contract as Reserve Bank governor and the resignation of the head of government's policy, Joel Netshitenzhe, is a growing concern and it is another indication of this continuing trend by the alliance partners to suffocate the free market system and replace it with socialism.

COPE condemns the disparaging remarks about Netshitenzhe's resignation by the Young Communist League. We believe that this shows the shallow nature of the engagement of the alliance partners and lays bare their agenda to introduce untested policies of socialism.

We acknowledge his sterling role both as a policy maker and as a government communicator who changed the face of government interphase from propaganda to proper information sharing.

We also condemn COSATU for pushing for the exclusion of the Minister responsible for planning from the economics cluster. This makes no sense at all. No proper planning of whatever nature will be a success without integrating this with economic planning. Such a phobia for excellence and the ideas that Manuel brings to the table bodes ill for our country.

The nation still awaits the promise made by the President in his maiden state of the nation address. COPE therefore reminds government of its promise for 500 000 jobs. We look forward to a report of how many jobs have been created.

What we know is that 500 000 jobs have been lost in the last 6 months. We are yet to hear COSATU raise issues with this state of affairs that may be pointing to more job losses rather than new jobs being created.

This morning in Cape Town, in a joint statement with the official opposition, COPE called for:
• Urgent steps to counter corruption.
• No budget roll-overs, except for service delivery infrastructure.
• Good governance rules for state owned enterprises.
• An audit of the necessity for state owned enterprises.
• Re-evaluation of salaries, perks and bonuses offered by the state owned enterprises.
• Amendments to the ministerial handbook.
• Managing the growing government salary bill.
COPE also calls for:
The ceasing of the micro management of government by the ANC alliance. The return to the focus on ASGISA and JIPSA, both programmes which have suddenly disappeared from government language since the establishment of the new administration. We believe that the current growth rate of 3.5% can be significantly altered if a few focused interventions by government can be taken seriously.

COPE on the Declining Culture of Human Rights

COPE would like to reiterate that South Africa is a constitutional democracy and therefore it is critical that all its values be upheld particularly by those in the state. The recent extraordinary attack on Professor Kadar Asmal by the Deputy Minister of Police was an affront to all South Africans. The Deputy Minister needs to appreciate his new role to protect all South Africans to exercise their hard earned freedom of expression. It is just plain rude of him to address someone of Asmal's stature with such disrespect - it is an indication of the disdain with which some ANC politicians continue to treat the rights of others to have a dissenting voice.

We equally condemn MKVA for their attack on Asmal. Some of these organizations need to find their new role in a society that has laid down arms and is seeking to reconstruct. This is a second incident that shows that this association seems to be lost in time and is battling to find its role in a post struggle era.

In the recent by-elections in the COEGA municipality, an ANC controlled town, the municipality refused to grant COPE the use of venues. COPE eventually decided to set up a tent in an open veld. There was a further attempt to refuse permission for this to happen and only granted after the community defied the tricks of the municipality to set up the tent anyway. In this era and after the lessons of the 2009 elections in that area where lives were lost, how can this conduct be justified?

The recalling of municipal councillors in Sakhile sets a bad precedent where local councils will not take responsibility to sort out their relationships with community. While it may seem heroic that it has calmed the communities down - it ingrains a sense of mob rule that is set to engulf other local municipalities where communities are unhappy.

COPE would like to see due process taking its course so that no one can escape responsibility by merely being ‘recalled ‘by the ruling party. It is clear that the ruling party's own so called deployees have failed the people of Sakhile and that the lives of the people will not be better by simply replacing a set of failed ANC people with another. In the by elections that must take place we hope the community will choose wisely by putting other representatives who will not forget them as soon as they are elected into positions.

When the police commissioner was elected we wrote him a letter in which we stated: "Sir, we live in a constitutional democracy" since then the issue of shooting to kill has gained momentum with both police and civilians being victims of the ongoing escalation of crime.

We want to assure South Africans that we support all efforts by government to fight crime and commend President Zuma for engaging directly with the leadership of the Police to find solutions to crime. It is clear from the crime statistics that we need to do more that give police more fire power to solve crime.

We need to involve communities to ensure that criminals feel unwelcome and that communities cease to buy stolen goods - this way we will bring down home robberies where these goods are dispossessed from our people for on selling. This area alone can send a cold message to thugs that their amassing of stolen goods will results in nothing. We repeat our call for the toning down of war talk that encourages a blood thirsty society. This we condemn as populist talk that will only serve to maim innocent people, as was the case in Soshanguve a few weeks ago. At the same time we condemn the killing of police men and we believe that the ultimate sentence must be meted out to criminals that open fire on our police.

Finally we believe that Section 49 of the Criminal Procedure Act, has adequate provisions for the police to protect themselves and communities without taking the law in their own hands as arrestor, prosecutor and executioner. Examples of this eye for an eye approach abound around the worldthey only make the world blind. COPE will be taking up the matter with the Human Rights Commission to pronounce on these issues.

COPE on the Escalating Tendencies of Corruption

The recent reports of the Auditor general point to an escalation of corruption and the tendency of impunity in dealing with such corruption in the public sector. COPE calls on government to prosecute all the Civil servants fingered by the attorney general by the end of the year. Should this not happen we will pursue private prosecutions of all the accused civil servants in 2010.

COPE on the Collapsing State of Local Government Service Delivery

COPE notes with concern the sporadic and continuous service delivery protests. We are concerned about the levels of corruption in local government that are going unpunished and we will be calling a government summit with all stakeholders to discuss what interventions we should propose to government for long term sustainability. This will coincide with COPE's policy conference for next year. Such a summit will also guide all our members who interphase with local government as well as our MPs who conduct constituency work in the affected areas.
We condemn the violence that accompanies these protests and calls on all of society not to resort to mob rule where they are not happy with service. Voting for the right people who are rooted in communities is a more powerful form of protest.

On a national level, we commend President Zuma for establishing a hotline. The volumes of these hotline proves our point that there is dysfunctionality at all levels of the civil service if so many people are unhappy with service. We believe that the line must improve its efficiency and we look forward to a report of what kind of interventions were made from this line.

On a separate matter - we remind the President that in his response to the state of the nation debate he promised that all his ministers will have performance contracts by the end of July - it is now the end of October and there are no contracts in place as far as we know. We call on the president to make these contracts public so that we can know how he is holding his ministers accountable.

The recent poor judgment shown by the Minister of Police in extravagant spending sends a bad message about this government and its priorities. We call on the President to take firm action to reign in the Minister of Police's petulant behaviour. COPE has called for this minister to step down. We will also be writing to the Public Protector to investigate whether state resources were abused in his tenure of office so far.