South Africans are not satisfied

In some communities in South Africa the poor have taken to the streets to protest their standard of living and the government's failure to provide them with essential services like housing, clean running water and electricity.

While South Africa has some of the best social security and economic development policies in the world, the government and the civil service have struggled to implement them.

Unlike many developing countries, the problem in South Africa is not mainly a shortage of resources. While the country has been hit by the global slowdown, the ruling ANC has long been recognised for the way it has nurtured economic growth and government finances have never been in better shape.

The problem is that in many areas the civil service is overstaffed and under-skilled, unable to even effectively spend their budget allocations. There have also been a worrying number of instances where service delivery has been hampered by cases of corruption.

Successive ANC governments have failed to effectively call the civil services to account because of conflicting political priorities. If the recently elected government is to put a stop to the community protests, then it will have to get the civil service to work.