Analysts described President Jacob Zuma's address as “very ambitious”, and said it lacked detail on implementation.
Political analyst at the Centre for Policy Studies, Aubrey Matshiqi, said should Zuma's “ambitious” plans on infrastructure development materialise, they would depend on a partnership between government, the public sector and civil society.
It would also depend on the performance of the global economy.
“One weakness is the absence of a pact between our social partners like labour, the private sector and the state,” said Matshiqi.
“With the absence of these, all plans will come to naught.”
Matshiqi hoped Zuma and his successors would in future focus their attention on this “special pact”.
On land redistribution, Matshiqi said he was waiting to see what the government was doing to change direction in that regard.
“It would be interesting to see what specific measures will be put in place to accelerate land restitution,” he said.
Zuma admitted the land redistribution process was “slow and tedious”.
He acknowledged that the willing buyer-willing seller option had not been the best way to address this question.
Only eight percent of land, of the 30 percent target by 2014, had been distributed.
Political commentator, Susan Booysen, said she expected more detail from Zuma's speech.
“It was a typical type of talking, assuring people that government was working on it but not much said on implementation,” she said.
Booysen said it was going to be quite a few years before South Africa saw any impact from the infrastructure investment plan.
There probably was not a short-term solution to problems in the country.
“Desperate people will be looking around how they can survive and bring food on the table this year and next year,” she said. - Sapa