Sean Gossel is Associate Professor in Financial Economics at the Graduate School of Business. Thomas Koelble is Professor of Business Administration, Political Science at the Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town.
The South African state is failing. This is not news to anyone. As far back as 2011 the National Planning commission identified aof the state that it warned would undermine social and economic progress. Then came the Zuma years and a systematic hollowing out of state entities that has left the government essentially unable to fulfil its constitutional mandate.
In his 2021 Budget speech, Finance Minister Tito Mboweni reported that of the 278 municipalities in the country, 163 were in financial distress, 40 were battling to deliver basic services, and 102 had adopted budgets for 2021/22 that they could not fund. Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke further reports that 57 municipalities were unable to provide accounts of their expenditures in 2020.
Amid the Covid-19 crisis, the country has seen the consequences of this dysfunction play out, from a sclerotic and “muddled”