Opposition parties on Monday lambasted President Jacob Zuma's State of the Nation address, saying South Africa had lost the hope held out by former President Nelson Mandela.

"Your first year in office has hardly been stellar and your call for 2010 to be a year of action really rings hollow in our ears," Democratic Alliance (DA) Parliamentary leader Athol Trollip said during the debate on Zuma's speech in the National Assembly.

"Why? Because we have heard all these exhortations before... Why should 2010 be any more a year of action than 2008 or 2009?" he asked.

"The reality is that the current crop of African National Congress (ANC) leaders is not comparable to the previous generation; certainly not to the person we are paying tribute to in this debate [Mandela]. Food for thought indeed."

Trollip accused Zuma of "meddling" with the judiciary and said his actions were a cause for grave concern.

"Mr President, speaking of political will, let me inform you that in the one area where you have shown some will - the meddling with the judiciary, the Judicial Service Commission and judicial appointments - your actions and those of your emissaries have not gone unnoticed and are a source for grave concern," Trollip said.

Congress of the People Parliamentary leader Mvume Dandala said that South Africa had lost the hope provided by Mandela, but was optimistic that many challenges could still be defeated.

Mandela was a strong leader with a sense of honour and a strong moral focus, he said.

"He raised our eyes to what we can become as a nation. He trusted and respected the law and allowed himself to be tested by the law. He insisted upon the separation of the State and party powers.

"He spurned patronage in all its forms. He had depths of compassion for the poor, always treating them with utmost dignity.

"Twenty years on, we have not captured that glitter of hope.

"We have debilitating poverty for millions of our people. In a country with our resource base, it is simply a shame that so many people live below the breadline.

"We have millions of our children unable to read or write, owing to an education system in collapse. We are not safe in our own homes, owing to the high levels of crime," Dandala said.

Independent Democrats (ID) leader Patricia de Lille agreed that the government had failed Mandela's legacy and called for a permanent commission to monitor and expose corruption in the government.

"It is indeed very sad for me that the millions of South Africans who deserve the most praise for our victory over oppression, the very people that led the battle in the streets, have yet to taste the fruits of our democracy," she said.

"The fact that government has not followed up its plans with implementation and evaluation means that in many ways government has failed Madiba's legacy."

"Indeed, by straying from the higher set of ethics espoused by Nelson Mandela, the ANC and the government have made a mockery of his legacy."

De Lille asked Zuma, when, if ever, he would have a plan on how the economy would be restructured so that jobs could be created.

"It is an indictment on the Mandela legacy that we have become the most unequal society in the world.

"It is patronising to enter into a semantic debate about what constitutes work when over a million South Africans lost their jobs last year," she said.

The African Christian Democratic Party called on Zuma to respond to reports that the ANC stood to reap billions from power utility Eskom's proposed tariff increases.

"Is it true, Mr President, that the ANC's share in this deal... is worth more than R5,7-billion?" party leader Kenneth Meshoe asked.

Eskom, strapped for cash to pay for two new coal-fired power stations, has controversially proposed electricity tariff increases of 35% a year for the next three years.

The ANC, through its Chancellor House investment company, reportedly holds a 25% stake - worth an estimated R5,7-billion - in Hitachi Power Africa, which is part of a consortium that has been awarded contracts to supply boilers to the new power stations.

Meshoe said that there were compelling reasons to believe that the ANC would benefit from the tariff increases, which he labled "another form of corruption by the majority party".

Meshoe told Zuma that "the writing was on the wall" for the ANC.

Freedom Front Plus leader Pieter Mulder drew a comparison with Mandela in his plea for wider consultation on name changes of places with historical value.

He said that ill-thought out name changes would cause conflict and polarisation across South Africa for the next 20 years.

"There is a very big difference between a name such as Pampoenfontein and Pretoria," Mulder said.

"Places such as Pretoria, Potchefstroom, Pietersburg, Piet Retief were named after Afrikaner heroes and carry a lot of Afrikaner history and emotion. Why are these names targeted if it is not meant to elicit confrontation?"

He said that around the world, towns carried double-barrel names of dictators and heroes "because they are part of history".

"You have not converted a man because you have silenced him or tried to wipe out his history.

"The previous government could not change Mr Mandela's view with his incarceration," Mulder said.