Ever asked yourself why South Africa lacks real accountability?

If you’ve ever tried to see any kind of real accountability in South Africa, you would have quickly noticed that real accountability is hard to find.

Perhaps the clearest evidence of this is the Zondo Commission report, which cost 1 billion rand and was completed in 2022. Despite exposing massive wrongdoing, almost nothing was acted upon. If a billion rand was spent by the state trying to bring accountability and it yielded no real results, it’s hard to argue that South Africa’s system functions with true accountability.

So why is this the case, especially when there are honest, hardworking people in the country? The answer is simple, yet profound, and it ties back to an Act of the British Parliament in 1909.

In 1909, the British Parliament passed the South Africa Act, declaring the Union of South Africa. Here is a copy of the cover page of that Act:

In 1910, the Union of South Africa was officially launched under the framework established by the 1909 Act of the British Parliament. This event set the stage for South Africa’s decision making structures. Here is a souvenir from this event:

The purpose of the 1910 Union of South Africa was largely resource extraction. Minerals had to be moved from the interior to the ports of Durban and Cape Town. Sarah Millin captures this when she wrote, “one of the chief portfolios in the union ministry is that of Railways and Harbours.”

To achieve this, the political and economic structure had to be narrow and highly centralized, which left little room for real accountability. While the geography of the country has changed somewhat since 1910, the narrow, centralized decision-making structure has not. South Africa remains, in many ways, the country created by an Act of British Parliament.

Such a centralized system focused on economics has resulted in the exploitation of both people and the environment. Since 1910, the country has witnessed devastating environmental impacts, such as the collapse of Cape Town penguin populations due to overfishing and the upheaval of coastal land north of the Olifants River from diamond mining.

Local communities have also suffered, from the forced labour of Zulu men on mines in the 1920s to the violent suppression of Afrikaner uprisings during the Rand Rebellion.

Not only have we seen exploitation, but continuous waste of resources. From water lost through leaking municipal infrastructure to poorly managed public projects. Public funds meant for schools, hospitals, and basic services are often delayed, mismanaged, or outright lost to corruption. This constant mismanagement highlights how the structural issues embedded since the country’s creation still manifest in everyday life, affecting both communities and the environment.

At the heart of this is the fact that there is no real accountability, and this is because South Africa was created for resource extraction. To achieve this, it required a very narrow and centralized decision making structure far away from local communities.

How do we get real accountability in South Africa?

The way forward from a practical leadership perspective is to build accountability from the outside, using media, public pressure, and collective civic engagement.

Real accountability requires a radically decentralized decision making structure, where municipalities are smaller, and leaders can be held responsible over short distances. When officials are physically and administratively closer to the people they serve, accountability becomes practical through local elections and local oversight. It is about reducing distance, the responsible path forward for South Africa.