Hon Speaker, the ACDP would like to remind the House of the straight-talking US President Harry S Truman who had a sign on his desk with this inscription: the buck stops here. As the president, he chose to accept personal responsibility for the way his country was governed. We believe the buck stops with President Zuma for the failings of his administration, as pointed out in the notice of motion.

Why are we saying that? During the Budget Speech, very disappointing economic growth projections of 2% were announced. We know that South Africa is caught in a low growth path. Of course, some of this is due to our past. Low skills, poor public service, poverty and inequality, and yes, some blame can be apportioned to the slowdown in the world economy and the reduced demand for commodities, but not all.

The President must accept responsibility for policy decisions resulting in slow economic growth and his unfortunate penchant for deferring blame is not credible and must come to an end. To cite two straightforward examples, the President has blamed the Eskom crisis on apartheid and the Nkandla perceptions on the media. It is totally unacceptable to make these allegations when we know, firstly, that the Public Protector - on Nkandla - is very clear and, secondly, former President Mbeki himself admitted that his government had not listened to Eskom when it wanted to increase generating capacity.

As the longest-serving member of the justice committee, I am shocked at what I have witnessed over the years regarding the politicisation and the weakening of the law enforcements agencies. The rot started with the disbanding of the Scorpions. This highly effective corruption busting unit was disbanded because it was successful in prosecuting politically connected ANC persons. This happened under President Zuma's watch.

It is apparent that no institution is safe from political interference. This includes the National Prosecuting Authority, NPA, the SA Police Service, SAPS, the Hawks, the SA Revenue Service, Sars and now even the Independent Police Investigative Directorate, Ipid, with its head Robert Mcbride last week accusing the Minister of Police of abusing his powers for illegitimate political reasons in court papers. The conclusion is inescapable that if you try to touch the President or one of his allies, your neck will be on the block.

Now, we are dealing with corruption and the head of Corruption Watch David Lewis has this to say:

This is a huge failure on the part of the political leadership. Even if they're not actually responsible for orchestrating the instability, they have to take responsibility for it.

The buck stops there. To conclude, the ACDP wishes to reiterate that we have no gripe with the President. We do not dislike him; in fact, he is a very affable person. We are, however, very concerned about the state of our nation on his watch.

As the buck stops with President Zuma, we will support the motion of no confidence. I thank you. [Applause.]