Johannesburg — PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma 's chief whip-cracker -- Collins Chabane, the minister in the Presidency responsible for monitoring and evaluation -- is surprisingly sanguine as the government marks its first 100 days in office.

Chabane's assessment of the government's handling of its five key priorities -- education, health, rural development, jobs and crime -- can be summed up : "So far so good." Chabane points to the successful meeting with school principals last week as an example of a president comfortable with ordinary people. The principals told Zuma it was the first time some of them had met a head of state in more than 30 years of teaching.

For Chabane, Zuma's leadership style shows the government is in touch with the people and willing to listen and act. This is a departure from the cold bureaucratic attitude of many in the civil service.

Analysts concur, although they are less forgiving of mistakes. Prof Adam Habib of the University of Johannesburg says the government, despite Zuma's inclusive leadership style, is still relying on "technocratic means" to solve vexing problems of delivery.

"The problem is that Zuma has promised everything in his state of the nation address and when you do that you end up actually saying very little," Habib says.

This was in part because the Zuma administration was "terrified" of the markets . "What they need to be doing is to 'manage' the markets, not placate them."

Habib says the task teams sent by Co-operative Governance Minister Sicelo Shiceka to assess the extent of the distress among municipalities are not really helping to address the issues of governance and involving citizens.

"The government does one of two things, either it responds technocratically or it invokes the 'comradeship' of the union leaders in order to deal with issues."

Chabane holds a different view, saying the state has managed to get all social partners to understand the difficulties facing the new administration.

While refusing to "grade" ministers, Chabane acknowledges that the past three months were a baptism of fire for Zuma's Cabinet. But the government is "on track" .

Chabane says the strikes and violent protests in some communities have posed challenges and caused delays in implementation.

"If one is to look at health, I have to acknowledge that government's preoccupation in trying to sort out the issue of occupational- specific dispensation deals in the case of doctors has impacted on the Department of Public Service getting a bit bogged down.

" The key issue is to get all the ministries functioning. What remains now is for the organisational structures to be set up.

"This will be finalised by the end of October.... T he policy papers are ready to be signed off by Cabinet, so soon we will have staff to get things moving," says Chabane .

He knows unless staff and skills deficits are addressed, the medium strategic framework will remain ideas on paper .

Zuma has announced plans to change the law to allow the national government to intervene in provinces and municipalities when dealing with graft and non- performance. Early-warning systems will be set up to stop problems from turning into full-blown crises.

While three months is not a long enough yardstick to measure the government's performance, one can judge Zuma 's intentions.

In reality, though, Zuma and his officials will soon learn they have to move beyond their promises.