Johannesburg:  The concept of a developmental state, where the government plays a key role in the economy, was undermined by the poor performance of the parastatals which were in an advanced state of crisis or on the verge of "a complete meltdown", the official opposition said on Tuesday.

In a study of the development state concept - which has enjoyed currency both in the administrations of President Jacob Zuma and his predecessor Thabo Mbeki - DA MPs Dion George and Ian Davidson argued that the country faced a serious debt crisis - with projected debt of R1.4 trillion by 2013 which translated into 43 percent of GDP - and the country could not afford to throw money at the parastatals.

Yet these parastatals were seen as a key platform of implementation of the developmental state.

George said that the country could reach the point where there was not sufficient money in the economy to pay for these costs. Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan could then turn to raising taxes which would be detrimental to the economy and to the taxpayer.

Davidson, the party's chief whip, said the ANC claimed that the developmental state was a drive to improve the lives of South Africans, but it looked more like "a useful foil" for a political agenda defined by the impulse to centralise power in the executive "to conflate party and state and, in doing so, to subvert the constitution."

The problem, he said, was that the concept of a developmental state was regularly referred to - and had been again in the president's state of the nation address in Gordhan's budget speech - and "yet this key ideological principle has not been defined."

The party argued that the South African state could not "in any meaningful way" be characterised as developmental.

"It lacks critical management capacity; it does not have a skilled, efficient, and meritocratic bureaucratic elite; the ANC's policy of cadre deployment has ravaged the public service, fuelled corruption and stalled service delivery," said Davidson.

"Too many state institutions are already so incapacitated and overwhelmed that giving them additional responsibilities and powers of intervention when the state cannot executive some of its core functions is likely to cripple them altogether."

The state, he said, was struggling to fulfil some of the most basic functions such as keeping its citizens safe from crime, providing quality education and health care, generating sufficient electricity and delivering essential services.

At the parastatals, political considerations "not service delivery" defined appointments and leadership positions served a patronage agenda, said Davidson.

"Their poor management costs the public enormous amounts in bailouts and the value anyone extracts from the tax they pay is denuded."

This had a profound impact on the lives of South African citizens for almost every interaction with the state was defined by ineptitude and poor customer service.

"Whether one needs an id document, to pay a TV licence, to receive electricity, to pursue a land claim, to catch a train or to drive on a road - the management of our public amenities has declined to a dangerously low level," Davidson argued. - I-Net Bridge