On the accountability front, pro-privatizers argue that private companies can be hired and fired depending on their performance while public sector workers and managers are much more difficult to remove from their positions, making them less accountable to the public. The same rationale is applied to corporatized and ring-fenced services, where it is argued that managers and workers become more accountable to the public because the costs and activities of their services are more easily monitored. The problem with this line of argument is that it assumes that the public sector as we know it is incapable of reform and deaf to criticisms. In reality, public institutions the world over have shown themselves capable of innovation and improvement and have created truly participatory forms of decision making which allow the public to have their say and which make city managers more accountable to the people they serve. Private companies, it is important to keep in mind, are accountable to their shareholders first and the public second.
Accountability is important, yes.
And Cape Town could use a lot more of it. But one should not assume that privatization and corporatization will provide what we seek.