South African State Capture: A Symbiotic Affair between Business and State Going Bad(?)

Abstract

Since March 2016, the subject of South African state capture has received much attention from the political, business and scholarly community in the country and beyond. The vibrancy of this public and scholarly discourse was reignited by the claims by some politicians from the ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), that in the recent past, they were approached by the Gupta family (business moguls) for consideration in ministerial appointments. These revelations have since produced a dominant perception that the Gupta family wields an undue influence over the President of the Republic and by extension, the entire state machinery. This extends to the family and friends as well. While the Guptas ‘capture’ the state, ministers and premiers are not directly accountable to them by protocol, but only to the President as a constitutional prerogative to do so. The view on state capture is not uniformly accepted. One notes the discourse is dominated by Euro-American perspectives, purporting to create a misunderstanding of the current trajectory of business–state relations in South Africa. As a theoretical framework, Afrocentricity is adopted and used in this article to answer the following two central questions: (i) Is it a myth or reality that the Gupta family has captured the South African state? (ii) At which point should corporate influence in state affairs be considered as illegal? Methodologically, this is achieved through thematic content analysis on conversations and the prevailing discourses circulating within South Africa.