South Africa would be significantly more economically viable if it did not have to carry a civil service sector that far exceeds the country’s needs in numerical terms. This is one of the many things one learns from R.W. Johnson’s candid, if sometimes completely disconcerting recent book, How Long Will South Africa Survive? The Looming […]
civil service
Posted inNews/Politics
How to get government services to step up their game
By Trevor Watkins Everyone knows we have a great Constitution. Hardly anyone knows what it contains, particularly most “civil” servants. How could this be changed? Most people are really only interested in things that affect them directly – saving money, saving time, cool things, interesting experiences. Tell them that Teazers can stay open because it […]
Posted inNews/Politics
From small mutinies big coups doth grow
After 20 years of thwarted hopes and expectations, South Africans are adroit at juggling the private truth and public lie. The ability to reconcile these two without guilt or a giveaway smirk has become a necessary social skill to guard one’s career or business prospects. This is very much a characteristic of nations drifting towards […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The stifling death grip of a dysfunctional bureaucracy
There is rarely spontaneous public applause for the efficiency and responsiveness of state entities. As well as almost limitless access to taxpayer funds, the impunity that assured employment affords, makes for public servant arrogance, sloth and waste. Combine these corrosive institutional traits with an African National Congress government that believes it has a God-ordained mandate […]
Posted inEquality, General, News/Politics
A ‘good story’ to tell – for some
I must admit, the ANC’s election moniker (you know, that it has a “good story” to tell) makes me very angry – probably much more than it should. In the wake of Nelson Mandela’s death, and the feeling that we’ll never again experience such collective unity or progress as a nation, the ANC’s election spin […]