How to Steal a Country describes the vertiginous decline in political leadership in South Africa from Mandela to Zuma and its terrible consequences. Robin Renwick's account reads in parts like a novel – a crime novel – for Sherlock Holmes old adversary, Professor Moriarty, the erstwhile Napoleon of Crime, would have been impressed by the ingenuity, audacity and sheer scale of the looting of the public purse, let alone the impunity with which it has been accomplished. Based on Renwick's personal experiences of the main protagonists, it describes the extraordinary influence achieved by the Gupta family for those seeking to do business with state-owned enterprises in South Africa, and the massive amounts earned by Gupta related companies from their associations with them. The ensuing scandals have engulfed Bell Pottinger, KPMG, McKinsey and other multinationals. The primary responsibility for this looting of the state however, rests squarely with President Zuma and key members of his government. But South Africa has succeeded in establishing a genuinely non-racial society full of determined and enterprising people, offering genuine hope for the future. These include independent journalists, black and white, who refuse to be silenced, and the judges, who have acted with courage and independence. The book concludes that change will come, either by the ruling party reverting to the values of Mandela and Archbishop Tutu, or by the reckoning it otherwise will face one day.

Analysing political corruption as a distinct but separate entity from bureaucratic corruption, this timely book separates these two very different social phenomena in a way that is often overlooked in contemporary studies. Chapters argue that political corruption includes two basic, critical and related processes: extractive and power-preserving corruption.

A scholarly analysis of how state capture unfolded in South Africa and how it was contested by a range of actors in civil society, political organizations and within the state itself.

Following the release of the Public Protector’s State of Capture Report in November 2016, South Africans have been witness to an explosion of almost daily revelations of corruption, mismanagement and abuses by those entrusted to lead the nation. The extent of this betrayal is overwhelming and it is often difficult to distil what actually happened during the Zuma administration. This book draws on the insights and expertise of 19 contributors from various sectors and disciplines to provide an account of what transpired at strategic sites of the state capture project. The ongoing threat of state capture demands a response that probes beyond what happened to understanding how it was allowed to happen. The stubborn culture of corruption and misgovernance continue to manifest unabated and the predatory practices which enable state capture have not yet been disrupted. It is our hope that the various case studies and analyses presented in this book will contribute to confronting these shortcomings in current discourse, and open avenues for progressive deliberation on how to collectively reclaim the prospects of a just and prosperous South Africa for all.

A powerful analysis of events that helped galvanise resistance across civil society. The 2017 publication of Betrayal of the Promise, the report that detailed the systematic nature of state capture, marked a key moment in South Africa’s most recent struggle for democracy. In the face of growing evidence of corruption and of the weakening of state and democratic institutions, it provided, for the first time, a powerful analysis of events that helped galvanise resistance within the Tripartite Alliance and across civil society.Working often secretly, the authors consolidated, for the first time, large amounts of evidence from a variety of sources. They showed that the Jacob Zuma administration was not simply a criminal network but part of an audacious political project to break the hold of whites and white business on the economy and to create a new class of black industrialists. State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) such as Eskom and Transnet were central to these plans. The report introduced a whole new language to discuss state capture, showing how SOEs were ‘repurposed’, how political power was shifting away from constitutional bodies to ‘kitchen cabinets’, and how a ‘shadow state’ at odds with the country’s constitutional framework was being built. Shadow State is an updated version of the original, explosive report that changed South Africa’s recent history.

You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out. Its easy to imagine that state capture began with Jacob Zuma and the Guptas. But youd be wrong. Born out of the ANC Womens League 20 years ago, Bosasa has come to be described as the ANCs Heart of Darkness. At its helm today is Gavin Watson, a struggle-rugby-player-turned-tenderpreneur who made it his business to splash out on gifts and cash to get up close and personal with the countrys top politicians and civil servants. In return, Bosasa won tenders to the tune of billions of rands and with friends in high places stayed clear of prosecution. Adriaan Basson has been investigating Bosasa since he was a rookie journalist 13 years ago. He has been sued, intimidated and threatened, but has stuck to the story like a bloodhound. Now, in the wake of the explosive findings of the Zondo commission, he has weaved the threads of Bosasas story together. Blessed by Bosasa is a riveting in-depth investigation into an extraordinary story of high-level corruption and rampant pillage, of backdoor dealings and grandiose greed. Through substantial research and a number of interviews with key individuals, Basson unveils the shady, cult-like underbelly of the criminal company that held the Zuma government in the palm of its hand.