A Political Discussion
What Does ‘State Capture’ Include And What Does It Exclude?
We should accept that there will be those that accept the notion of State Capture and there will be those that are against it.
There are those that will try to define acts of fraud and corruption as State Capture and there will be those that oppose these.
This has nothing to do with some being ‘good’ and others being ‘evil.’
When the notion of State Capture gained momentum after 2014, it was used to describe the activities of the Gupta family and how they allegedly influence decisions of the President to expand their commercial interests.
However, this seem to have expanded to include almost everything that is going wrong in our society.
In a recent Reply to a Parliamentary Question, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan, the leading proponent of State Capture in South Africa after he was not (re) appointed the Minister of Finance by President JG Zuma after the May 7th Elections of 2014, stated government has lost over R200 billion from State Capture corruption.
The New National Director of Public Prosecutions, Advocate Shamila Batohi was quoted recently as having said “State Capture costs us R1.4 trillion.” This cannot be true.
The South African economy would no longer exist. It is unacceptable that the National Director of Public Prosecutions engages in propaganda and not guided by objective facts.
This suggests to me that both Minister Pravin Gordhan and NDPP Batohi include in their calculations irregular, wasteful and fruitless expenditure in Government, Provincial Government, municipalities, State-Owned Enterprise and other public entities as part of State Capture.
Does this mean that a negligent civil servant contributing to irregular or wasteful expenditure is automatically guilty of State Capture?
There are also desperate attempts to link poverty and unemployment in our society to State Capture.
I know that the Guptas tried to influence and manipulate the PRASA tender for new commuter trains in 2012, which attempts were defeated. In this and many other cases, they demonstrated predatory or parasitic or rent-seeking
tendencies.
But to suggest that the root cause of the socio-economic crisis we face today is due to the Guptas or State Capture is far-fetched and not supported by reality.
The obsession with State Capture has lead Government since 2018 to commit one blunder after the other.
How the nation answers the above question will have serious policy and practical implications for the country moving forward.
Attempts To Provide A Non-Existent Theoretical Framework
The proponents of State Capture had sponsored the publication of numerous books to strengthen their case that the South African State has been captured.
This includes Jacques Pauw’s book, The President’s Keepers; Pieter-Louis Myburg’s Gangster State; Phillipe Burger’s Getting it Right; Ivor Chipkin and Mark Swilling’s Shadow State. The latest in this ‘new industry’ is Mcebisi Jonas’s After Dawn – Hope After State Capture.
Whilst some of the books focus on specific cases of fraud and corruption, there is a new body of writings suggesting that this was not just corruption but a systematic and well-connected network running a ‘Shadow State’ or a ‘Parallel State.’
These books attempt to provide a theoretical framework and give meaning to the notion of State Capture.
In their book titled Shadow State – The Politics of State Capture, Chipkin and Swilling try to define State Capture. They write:
“Corruption tends to be an individual action that occurs in exceptional cases, facilitated by a lose network of corrupt players. It is informally
organised, fragmented and opportunistic. State Capture is systemic and well-organised by people who have an established relationship with one
another. It involved repeated transactions, often on a repeated scale.”
In his last testimony to the Commission, Jonas tried to give effect to this type of analysis. He spoke about the need to avoid what he called the ‘Zumarisation of State Capture.’
However, the attempts to give academic and intellectual credibility to this notion could not be sustained. Even the authors concede they lack the solid evidence to support their alarming claims.
I have gone through the books many times in search of evidence but could not find any. I do not believe this book would stand any serious academic or review by academic peers of the authors.
In his new book, After Dawn – Hope After State Capture, Mcebisi Jonas writes:
“But the afternoon I was offered the bribe crushed this belief. I felt a deep sense of loss and disorientation as it dawned on me that the
rumours of a parallel state were not only true but had assumed a scale so audacious that South Africa’s state-building project had fallen
headlong into the hands of business interests whose value system seemed directly opposed to that of the ANC that I knew.”
It is not for me to deny the experiences of Mcebisi Jonas. I still do not understand though how the specific offer of a bribe could be elevated to be the experience of the rest of South Africa. It is a particular experience but this clearly does not represent the totality of our national life.
There is an attempt to deny the nature of the crisis we face today. This is attributed to some “networks of corrupt players.”
There is the denial that the South African State was never captured after April 1994, instead it has consistently acted in the interests of the mining–energy–finance complex that dominated our economy for over a century.
The democratic breakthrough of April 1994 was a major break with our apartheid past but it did not change, in a fundamental way, the structure and the unequal power-relations that form the economic base of the South African State.
Chipkin and Swilling however reveals another disturbing feature. Because the proponents of State Capture have created these “imaginary networks,” sometimes “established relationships” and sometime “loose network of corrupt players,” these have to be pursued at all costs and be exposed.
The authors of these books are unable to provide any concrete evidence to support the assertion of the existence of a shadow or a parallel state. They base their arguments on negative speculation and not fact.
To the contrary, the authors deliberately ignore evidence of the existence of real, unlawful activities that could be described as constituting the ‘Parallel State’ by some proponents of State Capture. Instead, there has been a focus on the so-called Zupta fightback.
Adriaan Basson, Editor-In-Chief of News24, writes an opinion piece aimed at what he defines as “connecting the dots of the Zupta fight back.”
Basson argues that if Batohi and NPA do not act, “the fightback will continue unabated and (President Cyril) Ramaphosa will increasingly look like a lame duck.” This is what Chipkin and Swilling mean by pursuing the “loose network of corrupt players” even if there is no evidence.
The President himself spoke of some kind of “fightback.” It appears, at least from his comments at the recent SACTWU Congress, that he too believes this notion of a fightback. If this is the dominant narrative, we are in serious trouble.
Lucky Montana is the former CEO of the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa)
