South African President Jacob Zuma recently lambasted his country’s civil service sector. Zuma argues that South African civil servants are the worst in the world. He rejects the argument that the legacy of apartheid is to blame. And he believes that accountability — or a lack of it — is at the route of the problems, not a lack of money.
I think Zuma might be engaging in dramatic overstatement when he places South Africa at the bottom of the world’s civil service sector, but his larger point stands. For people to place faith in government, they have to believe government is responsive to their needs. That is not the case in South Africa today.