Tšeliso Moroke
We cannot create employment.
We cannot build economic inclusivity.
We cannot grow domestic capability.
Not while the state is outsourcing almost everything.
This is the contradiction at the heart of our governance model. We speak about youth empowerment, local enterprise development, and inclusive growth. Yet in practice, the state contracts out its thinking, its planning, its implementation, its auditing, its legal strategy, its communications, almost every core function that should define a capable government.
A government that outsources its core responsibilities does not develop muscle. It develops dependency. And dependency is expensive.
There is a dangerous illusion at play: the state behaves like a wealthy corporation with unlimited liquidity, able to hire consultants for every task and commission external service providers for functions that should exist permanently within the public service.
But we are not a rich country.
We are a fiscally constrained economy, heavily reliant on volatile revenues and a narrow tax base. Every loti spent must be strategic. Every contract must build long-term value. Instead, outsourcing has become governance by convenience.
When policy expertise is required — outsource.
When systems fail — outsource.
When projects stall — outsource.
And when things collapse? We blame “capacity constraints.”
But who hollowed out that capacity?
There is a difference between strategic procurement and structural outsourcing.
Strategic procurement strengthens the state. It brings in temporary expertise while ensuring knowledge transfer to public servants. Structural outsourcing weakens the state. It replaces public capability with permanent external dependence.
We are drifting toward the latter.
Young professionals enter the public service but are sidelined while consultants do the substantive work. Ministries become contract managers rather than policy engines. Institutional memory disappears because the knowledge sits in private firms, not in government systems.
This model does not build a developmental state. It builds a brokerage state — one that manages invoices rather than national transformation.
If government spending does not circulate within domestic productive capacity, it cannot stimulate inclusive growth. Outsourcing large government functions often results in short-term contracts instead of long-term public employment, high consultancy fees instead of sustained skills development, and profits concentrated among a few rather than broad-based job creation.
Meanwhile, graduates remain unemployed. Skilled professionals migrate. The state complains of shortages while paying millions externally for expertise that could have been cultivated internally.
Employment is not created by issuing tenders alone. It is created by building systems that require permanent skills, permanent institutions, and permanent accountability.
Let us speak honestly. Outsourcing is not always about efficiency. Sometimes it is about discretion. External contracts can allow inflated pricing, weak oversight, political patronage networks, and reduced institutional accountability.
When government capacity is weak, oversight becomes weak. When oversight is weak, leakages multiply. When leakages multiply, public trust collapses.
A poor country cannot afford a procurement culture that mimics wealthy economies without their fiscal buffers. Acting rich while structurally poor is not modernisation. It is misalignment.
If we are serious about inclusive growth, state capacity is not a bureaucratic issue — it is economic policy.
A capable government designs policy internally, implements projects effectively, monitors outcomes rigorously, retains technical knowledge, and reduces unnecessary expenditure. This requires professionalising the civil service, investing in continuous training, enforcing performance accountability, digitising systems to reduce leakages, and limiting outsourcing to genuinely specialised and temporary functions.
Capacity-building is slower than signing contracts. But it is cheaper in the long run. And it is transformative.
We must adopt discipline before outsourcing any function. Is it core to government? Do we have people internally who could be trained to do it? Is there a structured knowledge transfer requirement? Are we measuring long-term cost, not just immediate convenience?
If we fail to ask these questions, we are not governing, we are managing decline.
The country must choose.
Do we want a state that merely administers transactions? Or a state that drives development?
A nation that outsources its thinking cannot control its destiny. A government that does not invest in its own capacity cannot credibly promise inclusive growth.
We cannot weaken the institution that shapes economic outcomes and still expect economic transformation.
The state must stop behaving like a wealthy consumer of services and start acting like a disciplined builder of institutions.
Because how the country moves is determined by how the state is built.
Summary
- Yet in practice, the state contracts out its thinking, its planning, its implementation, its auditing, its legal strategy, its communications, almost every core function that should define a capable government.
- We are a fiscally constrained economy, heavily reliant on volatile revenues and a narrow tax base.
- If we are serious about inclusive growth, state capacity is not a bureaucratic issue — it is economic policy.
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