JUBA, South Sudan — If there is any chance for South Sudan to get back on its feet, it will need to be serious about the mundane.

So says Fredrick Lokule, a veteran civil servant who is passionate about bureaucracy, of all things — specifically tax collection, the thankless task that any functioning state requires.

But the government of South Sudan, the world’s youngest country, has long been driven by personalities, not by policies. Now it cannot afford to pay even its most experienced technocrats.

Mr. Lokule, who is in charge of his state’s revenue authority, says he has not been paid for more than two months. His office sits on an unpaved road and experiences frequent power failures, so his employees have grown used to working in the dark.