South Africa’s Government of National Unity (GNU) is not the only government facing a fiscal crisis. But as the painfully obvious symbol of this crisis at home, the delayed, disputed and diluted 2025 budget has cost us the opportunity to systematically reduce costs and improve public services by modernising the state itself.
What cannot be overstated is that we can start to grow our way out of our deficit if this government becomes faster, leaner and digitally enabled. Responding to this practical necessity is how serious governments around the world are responding to fiscal pressure, and we must do the same.
Too much of our budget continues to be consumed not by essential services but by the inefficient systems meant to deliver them.
Manual paperwork, outdated software, multilayered approvals, and corruption-prone processes all drive up the cost of government and drive down growth projections.
Digitising government is the most affordable and effective way to cut unnecessary expenditure without compromising service delivery to grow our economy for job creation.
Countries with far fewer resources have already shown us what is possible. Estonia digitised nearly all public services and reduced the size of its civil service while improving outcomes. Nigeria has successfully deployed a biometric ID system that now underpins a wide range of accessible government programmes.
Yet South Africa’s public service is lagging behind in a dial-up no-mans-land.
Growth-enabling wins
Applying a digital lens to just three departments - the home affairs, health, and communications and digital technologies (DCDT) – quickly shows that each is bogged down in legacy systems that waste money and erode public trust. But the government can land some growth-enabling wins immediately:
- Home Affairs can roll out self-service kiosks for ID and passport applications, just as banks have done with ATMs. A digital birth and death registration system would reduce fraud and save families weeks of paperwork and travel.
- The DCDT, through ICASA, ironically still relies on slow manual licensing and approvals. With automated broadband rollout tracking and cloud-based digital identity systems, quick online applications could encourage and catalyse growth in the digital economy while cutting its own red tape.
- The national department of health can deploy AI-assisted triage in clinics to prioritise urgent cases. Rwanda’s AI-powered health chatbot improved healthcare access by handling over 4,000 digital consultations daily. The system streamlines triage, helping nurses prioritise urgent cases and reduce clinic congestion.
These are not high-tech moonshots. These are all technologies that already exist and are in use elsewhere in the world.
Hard yards
We know that still, every year, South Africa loses billions to fraud and administrative delays. All of these are symptoms of outdated systems and behaviours that no longer serve the needs of the public, and actively erode the effectiveness of government.
At 0.1% growth in the last quarter, South Africa isn’t just missing targets — it’s missing the digital revolution.
Right now, every role player in the GNU should be prepared to do some hard yards on a digital sprint for growth if we’re to have hope in a modern, future-fit tomorrow.
The consequences in the South African state are visible, whether it’s ghost employees who drain the public payroll, or suppliers billing twice for undelivered goods.
Clinics and hospitals are overwhelmed because patient records remain on paper, or locked in a room without a key, or simply lost.
Fixing this simply requires strong leaders to confront the truth that government cannot deliver better services or reduce costs while clinging to outdated, analogue methods, systems and behaviours.
The public, civil society and private sector are asking for systems that are clear and consistently work, documents that arrive on time, and services that can be accessed without standing in line for hours.
Meeting expectations is entirely possible if the state moves past broken processes and starts digitally building the future.
Craker is CEO and Mogale is public sector lead at iqbusiness
First published in the Sunday Times Business Times on Sunday 15 June, 2025, page 7
