MyMzansi's Plumbing Problem: Digitising Government Is Not the Same as Serving Citizens
MyMzansi's Plumbing Problem: Digitising Government Is Not the Same as Serving Citizens
Embedded Files
South Africa's digital-government journey has reached an important new phase with MyMzansi, the country's unified digital government-services initiative. The programme describes itself as a roadmap for transforming government through Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), with an emphasis on shared technology, modern design and collaborative delivery. Its stated ambition is to simplify how residents, businesses and government interact, while creating a safe and inclusive digital future. This is an important direction.
But there is a question that deserves as much attention as the architecture itself:
How will we know whether digital government is actually improving citizens' experience?
That question matters because digital transformation can produce impressive infrastructure, sophisticated interoperability and elegant platforms without necessarily resolving the underlying institutional problems that citizens experience.
The pipes can be modernised without necessarily improving the water.
South Africa's Digital Government Paradox
South Africa's Digital Government Paradox
South Africa is already a strong performer by international digital-government measures.
In the 2024 United Nations E-Government Survey, South Africa ranked 40th out of 193 countries, with an E-Government Development Index (EGDI) score of 0.8616, placing it in the UN's very high category. Its Online Services Index was 0.8872, while its Telecommunications Infrastructure Index was 0.8951. South Africa was also the highest-ranked country in Africa on the EGDI.
These are significant achievements. But an international index and the experience of an individual citizen measure different things. A citizen does not experience an EGDI score.
They experience whether an identity document arrives when promised, whether a grant application can be tracked, whether a municipal fault is resolved, whether a business can register without unnecessary friction, and whether government responds when something goes wrong.
That does not make international benchmarks unimportant. Rather, it highlights their limitation: national digital capability is not the same thing as frontline service quality.
The challenge for MyMzansi is to convert that digital capability into visible, measurable public value.
The Pipes and the Water
The Pipes and the Water
MyMzansi's roadmap places significant emphasis on foundational DPI capabilities, including digital identity, data exchange and unified digital channels. Its first phase, covering 2025–2027, focuses on delivering key DPI components and piloting areas such as Digital ID, Data Exchange and government service and payment integration.
These capabilities are important, but they are means rather than ends. The test is whether better digital infrastructure improves how institutions work and how citizens experience government.
Janowski's model of digital-government evolution is useful here. It describes a progression from digitisation and transformation toward engagement and contextualisation. The implication is important. Governments do not complete digital transformation simply by moving internal processes onto digital infrastructure. They must increasingly adapt technology to context and deepen interaction with citizens.
Similarly, Patrick Dunleavy and his colleagues' work on Digital-Era Governance highlights how technology can reshape the organisation and delivery of the state. Digital government is therefore not simply an IT implementation exercise; it is an institutional reform challenge.
The distinction can be expressed simply, “Better pipes do not automatically mean better water.”
A government can have interoperable systems and still have slow processes. It can have a digital identity and still have citizens travelling long distances to resolve problems. It can have a unified portal and still require people to understand which department is responsible when something goes wrong, and it can digitise a bureaucratic process without removing the bureaucracy that made the original process frustrating.
MyMzansi's Principles Are Actually Encouraging
MyMzansi's Principles Are Actually Encouraging
It would be unfair to describe MyMzansi as simply a technocratic programme. Its published principles explicitly place Batho Pele at the foundation of the roadmap, alongside accessibility, responsiveness and accountability. Its service-design approach also emphasises understanding user and institutional needs before deciding what to build or procure.
These are important foundations. The more difficult question is therefore, “Can these principles survive implementation across the complexity of the South African state?” That is where the real test begins.
The Institutional Problem Behind Digital Transformation
The Institutional Problem Behind Digital Transformation
Research on South African public-sector digital transformation points to precisely this challenge.
Shibambu's 2024 study of digital-government transformation across South African government departments and state-owned entities found that challenges include low digital literacy, poor digital infrastructure and unreliable power supply, while also highlighting the importance of executive leadership and institutional capacity in driving ICT transformation.
This matters because the success of a national digital-government programme depends on more than the quality of its central architecture. It depends on what happens inside the departments and institutions that ultimately deliver the service.
A beautifully designed national platform cannot compensate indefinitely for:
fragmented institutional responsibilities;
weak process ownership;
poor data quality;
inadequate digital capability;
unclear accountability;
unreliable infrastructure;
exclusion of users with limited connectivity or digital literacy; or
organisational resistance to changing established processes.
The technology can expose these weaknesses, and it cannot automatically solve them.
G. Asimakopoulos et al. Societies(2026)
From Digital Outputs to Citizen Outcomes
From Digital Outputs to Citizen Outcomes
The first shift should therefore be from measuring what government builds to measuring what citizens experience.
An integrated API is an output; a citizen no longer having to visit three departments is an outcome. A new digital identity system is an output; a citizen being able to complete a service securely without repeatedly submitting the same information is an outcome.
A unified portal is an output; a measurable reduction in the time required to resolve a citizen's problem is an outcome.
MyMzansi should therefore complement implementation metrics with indicators such as:
Turnaround time: How long does it take to complete or resolve a service?
First-contact resolution: Can citizens resolve issues without repeated interactions or physical visits?
Completion rates: How many people who begin a digital process actually complete it?
Accessibility: Can people with different levels of connectivity, disability and digital literacy use the service?
Citizen satisfaction: Do users believe the service actually improved their experience?
Trust: Are citizens willing to use the service again and entrust government with their information?
Accountability for these measures should not sit with technology teams alone. MyMzansi's existing governance architecture provides a potential mechanism: the Inter-Departmental Working Group can establish common citizen-outcome measures, the Digital Service Unit can coordinate implementation and reporting, and individual departments can remain accountable for outcomes within their mandates.
This would make citizen experience part of the governance and performance architecture of digital government.
Design With Citizens, Not Simply For Them
Design With Citizens, Not Simply For Them
Digital inclusion cannot be reduced to connectivity. A person may have a smartphone and still be unable to navigate a complex government process. They may have connectivity but insufficient data. They may be digitally literate but distrust how the government handles their personal information. Or they may successfully submit an application but have no visibility into what happens next.
MyMzansi's emphasis on accessibility and user needs provides a foundation for addressing these issues. The next step should be to make citizen co-design a measurable part of delivery. Community organisations, civic-technology practitioners, user-experience researchers and citizens themselves should be involved in testing services before large-scale implementation.
Not simply; did we build it? But can the intended user actually use it, understand it and trust it?
Build Vertically Before Integrating Horizontally
Build Vertically Before Integrating Horizontally
There is also a case for prioritising complete service journeys over pursuing integration for its own sake. Rather than trying to transform every government interaction at once, government can identify a limited number of high-volume, high-friction services and improve the entire journey from beginning to end.
This does not mean abandoning interoperability. It means using it to solve specific citizen problems rather than treating integration itself as the achievement.
Make Accountability Part of the Digital Service
Make Accountability Part of the Digital Service
The final shift is from digital transactions to digital accountability; a citizen should not simply be able to submit an application. They should be able to see:
What happened, who is responsible, when should I expect a response and what happens if the deadline is missed?
This suggests a model in which digital government services incorporate:
real-time application tracking;
published service-level expectations;
automated escalation when deadlines are missed;
clear responsibility for unresolved cases;
accessible complaint and appeal mechanisms; and
aggregated performance reporting.
This is where digital government can become more than a convenience; it can become a mechanism for institutional accountability.
The Real Test of MyMzansi
The Real Test of MyMzansi
MyMzansi should not be judged simply by whether South Africa successfully creates a sophisticated digital-government architecture. Nor should the UN's strong digital-government rankings be dismissed. They demonstrate that South Africa has significant digital capability and a strong foundation on which to build. The more important test is what happens when that capability reaches the citizen.
MyMzansi's own roadmap recognises the importance of accessibility, responsiveness and accountability. The governance architecture already provides an opportunity to turn those principles into measurable obligations: the Inter-Departmental Working Group can establish common citizen-outcome measures; the Digital Service Unit can coordinate their implementation and reporting; and departments can be held accountable for the service outcomes within their mandates.
That is the shift MyMzansi now needs, from measuring digital delivery to measuring public value.
Because citizens do not experience APIs, they do not experience data catalogues, they do not experience interoperability frameworks. They experience government. That is ultimately the standard against which digital government should be judged.
The pipes matter. But the purpose of the pipes is the water.
South Africa does not need less digital architecture. It needs digital architecture that consistently produces better public services, greater accountability and greater trust.
That should be the real promise of MyMzansi.
Page updated
Report abuse