South Africa’s local government crisis is not simply a failure of individuals. It is the predictable outcome of the design of public sector institutions that makes capture possible.

South Africa’s governance crisis is often framed as a problem of corrupt individuals. But what if the deeper problem is the system itself?

That was the provocative argument advanced by Alex van den Heever, Wits School of Governance adjunct professor, who was the keynote speaker at the 16th Premier Corporate Governance Conference in Sandton on 16 September.

The central message was stark: when the same failures occur repeatedly across municipalities and public institutions, we should stop blaming only the people and start examining the architecture that enables them.

He distinguished between “governance with a big G” – the design of systems, markets and public institutions – and corporate governance, which establishes accountability within individual organisations. The two are inseparable. Weaknesses in the broader governance system can undermine even well-designed corporate governance structures.

At the heart of the problem is the principal-agent challenge: whenever people are entrusted to manage resources on behalf of others, there must be effective and independent oversight. If those responsible for oversight are themselves dependent on or conflicted with those they are supposed to oversee, accountability begins to collapse.

This is where political influence over appointments becomes particularly problematic.

When political structures have significant influence over appointments to senior public-sector positions, the risk extends beyond individual appointments. It can create a system in which those exercising political authority also influence the people responsible for managing public resources.

Once that happens, oversight can become compromised.

And when the system rewards those willing to ignore the rules, ethical individuals become increasingly difficult to retain. Good governance cannot depend on repeatedly finding exceptional people who are prepared to resist a system designed to work against them.

The system itself must make capture harder.

Johannesburg: a governance failure with a physical cost

The consequences are visible in South Africa’s municipalities.

Van den Heever contrasts Johannesburg and Cape Town, citing a Johannesburg infrastructure asset backlog of between R150-billion and R250-billion, while arguing that Cape Town does not face an equivalent backlog.

Whatever the precise causes, the contrast raises an important governance question: why does money allocated to public infrastructure fail to translate into functioning infrastructure?

In Johannesburg, deteriorating water, electricity and roads are not isolated failures. They are symptoms of accumulated institutional weakness.

When oversight is compromised and those benefiting from institutional failure have an incentive to maintain the status quo, infrastructure deteriorates, costs escalate and citizens ultimately pay the price.

Accountability that arrives too late is not accountability

Another fundamental weakness is timing.

South Africa has become increasingly adept at investigating failure after the damage has occurred. But accountability that arrives years after a malfunction happened has little deterrent effect and may do little to recover what has been lost.

He highlighted investigations involving the Gauteng Department of Health and Tembisa Hospital, as well as the Madlanga Commission, which he describes as an “expensive exercise in very late-stage accountability”.

Commissions have an important role. But they should not become substitutes for the oversight mechanisms that ought to deter or at least detect problems as they occur. Accountability must operate alongside decision-making, not years afterwards.

Procurement is where design matters most

Procurement provides a particularly clear example.

Where there are opportunities to manipulate processes and little likelihood of timely consequences, abuse becomes increasingly difficult to prevent.

The problem is not uniquely South African. Procurement systems everywhere are vulnerable to capture. But the risk increases when political executives can influence senior appointments while also exercising influence over procurement processes – from bid committees and tender specifications to contract variations and payments.

The result can be projects that receive substantial payments, are abandoned and later put out to tender again, with little effective accountability.

Criminal prosecution alone cannot solve a systemic problem of this scale. There are not enough courts or prisons to deal with every consequence after the fact.

The better approach is to build accountability into the procurement system itself.

One proposal is “transparency by default”: procurement information should be published automatically and in real time, rather than requiring journalists, civil society or citizens to fight for access after decisions have been made.

But transparency is only the first step. Information must trigger action.

Red flags need to be identified quickly and referred to structures with the authority and independence to intervene. Responsibility must sit close to the decision, with a clear separation between those operating procurement systems and those overseeing them.

Boards, meanwhile, should oversee whether governance frameworks are being followed rather than becoming involved in individual contract awards.

Four pillars and one essential ingredient

The speaker identifies four pillars of effective institutional accountability:

  • Integrity rules and performance requirements
  • Transparency
  • Independent supervision
  • Consequences.

Each is necessary, but none works alone.

Transparency is meaningless if nobody has the authority to act on what it reveals. Supervision is ineffective if the supervisors are compromised. And consequences lose their deterrent value when they arrive years after the event.

The objective is therefore not more bureaucracy. It is better accountability at the point where decisions are made – where responsibility is identifiable, decisions can be scrutinised and intervention can still prevent harm.

This has implications for the appointment of boards as well. Boards of public entities should have the authority to appoint and remove CEOs, while their own appointment processes should be protected from political capture.

The same principles apply to state-owned enterprises such as Eskom, Transnet and PRASA. Each has a different mandate, but all need governance structures that clearly establish who makes decisions, who provides oversight and who is accountable when things go wrong.

The bigger lesson is uncomfortable but important. Good governance cannot depend on finding the right people and hoping they remain in place.

Institutions must be designed to withstand changes in leadership, political pressure and human weakness.

If the system makes capture easy, integrity becomes an individual act of resistance.

If the system makes capture difficult, integrity becomes part of the institution itself.

That is the real test of governance – not whether we occasionally find good people, but whether we build institutions in which doing the right thing is easier, misconduct is harder and accountability comes before the crisis, rather than after it.

Published: 11/11/2026