The plan was unveiled by the National Planning Commission head Trevor Manuel in November last year, with a promise to steer South Africa onto a new and bold socio-economic development path.

Monday's announcement came amid indications that some quarters within the ANC’s broad church were campaigning to discredit the plan. The National Union of Metalworkers SA (Numsa) criticised the draft, saying that its framework deviated from the ANC’s 2007 Polokwane national conference resolutions.

Numsa was of the opinion that both the diagnostic report and NDP deliberately ignored the basic systematic and structural driver of the development crisis, which was “white monopoly capitalism”. There were fears that intense politicking within the ANC might derail the plan.

The plan was presented to President Jacob Zuma as a packet of recommendations to be scrutinised and endorsed by the cabinet.

Its nine areas of focus include jobs, education, health, socio-economic infrastructure, spatial planning, economic structure, public service, corruption and social cohesion.

The document says unemployment will have to fall from 27% today to 14% by 2020 and to 6% by 2030. To reach this target, the country must create an additional 11 million jobs. The draft speaks of the need for GDP per capita to increase from about R50 000 per person in 2010 to R110 000 per person by 2030.

Recently, the plan was used as a marketing tool to woo potential investors to South Africa and the continent during the annual World Economic Forum, which ended last week.

Business Unity SA urged both the government and private sector to ensure that the target set out in the NDP and the national growth path became a reality in 2012.