South Africa Has a Full Payroll and an Empty State.

Every politician who defends the size of South Africa’s civil service is making a choice. They are choosing the employee over the employer. The system over the outcome. The salary bill over the service.

In this Employer’s Voice episode, Gerhard Papenfus lays it out plainly.

Municipalities where up to 60% of rates revenue goes to staff costs. Workforces bloated by 20 to 35% beyond what the job requires. Staff on suspension, at home, on full pay, for over a year — while business owners wait on licences, inspections, and connections that never arrive.

When a politician tells you that protecting these jobs is standing up for workers, ask them which workers. Because the business owner who cannot open, cannot build, and cannot operate because the state has not delivered, employs workers too. Real ones. In a sector where there is no guarantee, no protection, and no tolerance for dead weight.

South Africa cannot grow its economy with the civil service it currently has. That is not opinion. That is the consequence of a political choice made repeatedly, at every level of government. Watch the full video.

Share it if you think it’s time that changed.