By Thapelo Molefe
Justice and Constitutional Development Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi has warned that South Africa risks entering a dangerous “second phase of state capture,” this time driven by gangs infiltrating local government structures.
Speaking at the three-day Combating Crime summit hosted by the University of Johannesburg on Friday, Kubayi said armed groups were increasingly using intimidation and violence to take control of municipalities and secure procurement deals.
“Whereas the first phase of state capture was top-down, the second phase seems to be taking root from the bottom,” she said.
“Through intimidation, threats, and violence, they take over the decision-making processes in the municipality and redirect all procurement towards companies that hardly deliver services. The poor performance of municipalities, driven by instability and weak governance, has created space for opportunistic gangs that are not powerful enough to capture national government but are violent enough to capture municipalities.”
Kubayi drew parallels between the state capture era exposed by the Zondo Commission and the emerging patterns of municipal infiltration.
“This is a phenomenon we need to nip in the bud. Otherwise, our municipalities will fall in the hands of criminal gangs that will devour our communities,” she warned.
The minister said government was implementing the Zondo Commission’s recommendations, despite perceptions of slow progress. She highlighted that the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) had 37 state capture-related cases under investigation or before the courts.
According to Kubayi, the NPA’s Asset Forfeiture Unit has recovered more than R3.9 billion, while the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has clawed back over R10.6 billion since 2020, much of it linked to COVID-19 corruption.
“Admittedly, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to deal with the wrongs that have been committed. There are many perpetrators of corruption who still need to be held accountable,” she said.
Kubayi also announced new anti-corruption measures, including:
• a permanent Lifestyle Audit Unit within the SIU,
• stronger protections for whistle-blowers, and
• a review of the Protected Disclosure Act to introduce incentives for reporting wrongdoing.
She cautioned that corruption, if unchecked, has devastating effects in developing countries.
“Public money stolen is public service delayed or denied. Money stolen from the public coffers can mean that children are left to die of preventable diseases, or that communities are decimated by disasters that could have been avoided if funds were available to protect them,” she said.
Kubayi further stressed the need to diagnose the forms of corruption most prevalent in South Africa—ranging from bribery and extortion to nepotism and cronyism—to design effective countermeasures.
She noted that corruption undermines investment, erodes market confidence, and traps countries in cycles of low growth. Combating cybercrime and equipping prosecutors with artificial intelligence tools, she added, were also essential to tackling emerging threats.
Quoting former president Nelson Mandela, Kubayi said success depends on partnerships across society:
“Success in reducing crime to acceptable levels depends on a partnership of all social structures working together for common goals. In crime we have a common enemy.”
Calling for unity, Kubayi said: “Let’s join hands and work together to prevent and combat corruption in South Africa. What is it that we are going to do together to prevent another state capture—state capture 2.0?”
INSIDE POLITICS