The African National Congress and South Africa’s Public Service: A Crisis of Dominance and Accountability

Abstract

This article explores the impact of African National Congress-led government’s dominance on South Africa’s public service. On one hand, the African National Congress since the 1994 democratic elections had many achievements in advancing South Africa’s democracy and responding to the citizens’ needs through countless development and policy initiatives that were designed to cater to the basic needs of the citizens. On the other hand, it has become less responsive to citizen needs and this is evident as citizens have taken to the streets to protest for service provisions throughout the country. Citizens’ discontent can be seen in the rapid decline of the African National Congress’ political dominance and the formation of political coalitions. South African public service delivery has been marked by a lack of public accountability, corruption, cadre deployment, state capture, and procurement system manipulation as a result of the African National Congress’s dominance since the country’s first democratic elections. It is important to note that most South African citizens depend on the public sector and the African National Congress’s dominance in the public sector has damaged its ability to be responsive to citizens’ needs. This article relied on secondary sources, by reviewing current literature on the ramifications of having one political party dominating the country’s political space for decades.

Keywords

• coalitions
• corruption
• dominance
• government
• public service