The DA has attacked President Kgalema Motlanthe's rejection of a judicial inquiry into the arms deal, his defence of affirmative action and his endorsement of the negotiated settlement in Zimbabwe.

Party parliamentary leader Sandra Botha described Motlanthe's reply on the three issues as misguided.

"In terms of his comments on the arms deal, (he) practically suggested that the function of government is not to proactively address corruption … but rather to wait until Parliament (which is currently dominated by an obsequious ANC majority) or other governmental agencies (on which there is ever-growing literature alleging political interference) say that it is appropriate to do so. This is not in order," she said.

During his reply to the State of the Nation debate, Motlanthe repeated his earlier rejection of a judicial inquiry into the arms deal, saying it would constitute a parallel legal process.

He said the arms procurement process had been investigated by a joint team comprising the Public Protector, Auditor-General and National Director of Public Prosecutions, who had found no corruption in the primary contracts.

Botha criticised Motlan-the's lauding of the political settlement in Zimbabwe, which has resulted in the adoption of a constitutional amendment by the Zimbabwean parliament to pave the way for opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to become prime minister and for a new cabinet to be installed this week. Motlanthe said it was a vindication of South Africa's approach to the crisis there.

"In essence this is a vindication, that our approach to the crisis of Zimbabwe all along has been correct."

But a critical Botha said the fact that a political solution had been sought under the "highly partisan" facilitation of former president Thabo Mbeki, made the outcome - which offers the ruling Zanu-PF a hold on power even after losing the March 29 elections - extremely suspect.

Botha also attacked Motlanthe's defence of the government's affirmative action policies, saying he had concen- trated too much on "racial bean counting".

She said the critical area of concern should be to ensure that enough jobs were created to absorb unskilled labour from poor communities.

In his reply, Motlanthe quo-ted extensively from Statistics SA's Labour Force Survey released last year, which showed that the percentage of unemployed black people was at 30% as opposed to only 4% of white South Africans.

He also announced April 22 as the date for national and provincial elections.