Accelerated radical socioeconomic transformation. That is the top priority for the ANC-led government in 2017.

This was a key resolution of the ANC national executive committee (NEC) meeting and NEC lekgotla held last month as contained in the statement released by secretary-general Gwede Mantashe.

The NEC defined radical socioeconomic transformation as "a fundamental change in the structure, systems, institutions and patterns of ownership and control of the economy in favour of all South Africans, especially the poor, the majority of whom are African and female".

It's nothing new. It is an oft-stated goal. That it is repeated so often merely exhibits that the ANC has yet to figure out concretely how to achieve this objective.

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Tonight, President Jacob Zuma will give his State of the Nation Address. He will in all likelihood echo the theme of radical socioeconomic transformation with a focus on land, broadening black participation in the economy and higher education.

There will be very few if any surprises in this year's speech.

Zuma will continue to build on the narrative of "the good story to tell", painting an optimistic picture of the state of the nation and of the performance of his administration.

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He will as usual emphasise the constraints that the state of the global economy has placed on the country's economy and how these have curtailed growth.

The nine-point plan will also remain a key feature of his address as he will use the opportunity to announce the sustained progress made by stabilising the energy situation, in attracting investment into industrialisation efforts, in improving labour relations and in implementing operation Phakisa.

What the president will steer clear of is addressing the elephant in the room - poor governance on the part of his government.

The same NEC statement noted: "At the heart of radical socioeconomic transformation is an effective state that is decisive in its pursuit of structural change."

This speaks directly to the weakness and glaring failure of the ANC-led government to build an effective state that is decisive in doing those things that are necessary to transform SA to greater heights of prosperity and progress beyond that which the party has achieved in its dithering.

In the NEC statement, the party summarises these achievements, including "expanding employment (formal and informal) from 9.5million in 1994 to 16million at the end of 2015; growing a vibrant and successful middle class and significantly reducing the number of people below the poverty line".

It then declares that "[more] still remains to be done". The more accurate statement is that more could have, and should have been done.

Over time it has become clear that the government has little to no political will to make this happen. There may be pockets of excellence across the various levels of the public service, but excellence has become the exception rather than the rule.

This is why 23 years at the helm of government the ANC is still identifying the need "for a strong overarching institutional centre that has the power to ... enforce policy adherence and programme implementation", that the party must "enforce the constitutional framework of government in terms [of] the structure and configuration of government as a unitary state" and that "government must drive a programme of professionalisation of the public service including teaching public servants the philosophy and ethics of the development state".

Frankly, these are tasks that the ANC government should have been undertaking consistently in its decades in power. Zuma will give his State of the Nation Address against the backdrop of the Life Esidimeni tragedy where 94 mental health patients lost their lives owing to a failure of governance.

The president will peddle the narrative of a good story with the failure of government to deliver learning materials to pupils in Limpopo lingering in the background.

Zuma will talk about radical socioeconomic transformation and the need for the rest of society, particularly business, to get on board when his own government failed to curb wasteful and irregular spending going into billions of rands.

All this is evidence of an ineffective ANC-led government that after 23 years in power approaches the functions of the state like an incompetent novice.

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