South Africa is a mafia state

While Parliament probes deeper into corruption in the criminal justice system, political analyst Prince Mashele said the testimonies have revealed that South Africa has been criminalised to the point of being a mafia state.

“That is for me the most important and indeed the most worrying thing about all of the circus that is unfolding,” Mashele said during an interview on SMWX.

Mashele was referring to the Madlanga special Commission of inquiry and the Parliamentary Ad Hoc Committee investigating the allegations made by Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi.

During a press briefing in July, Mkhwanazi said that corruption and political interference have taken over South Africa’s criminal justice system.

The allegations highlighted suspended police minister, Senzo Mchunu’s, directive to disband the Political Killings Task Team, as well as related criminal interference and corruption.

Following what has been revealed during the probes, Mashele lamented the condition of South Africa’s politics, calling it a “mafia state.”

“South Africa is a Colombia. It has become a dangerous society. If you want to be safe, you have to live in a gated communities, and carry a firearm. You can’t drive at night anymore, you have to be home early.”

“You can’t walk around the townships at night, not even rural areas are safe anymore. The ANC has criminalised our society.”

Mashele explained that criminal syndicates infiltrate a country’s leadership through incremental steps. Firstly, they infiltrate the ruling party. 

“That’s the easiest entrance into the state,” Mashele said. “Because generally political parties are poor. They don’t have money. So what do you do? You donate money.”

Mashele said that political parties will then embrace these criminals. This is what underlies the “criminal arrangement” known as the Progressive Business Forum. 

The forum was established by the ANC to promote collaboration between the government and business. Mashele said this is a criminal mechanism which allows criminals into the ANC under the guise of “progressive businessmen.”

Secondly, once a criminal force has breached the ruling party, it will continue to sponsor the party, usually through an election. 

When the party has control of the state, the criminal syndicate will then move to sponsoring a selection of strategic individuals, usually in the criminal justice system. 

Political elite and criminal elite one and the same

“They’ll pay for a minister’s school fees or pay for them to go on holiday. ANC Secretary General Fikile Mbulula went to Dubai on holiday; someone had to have paid for that,” Mashele said. 

Mashele is referencing a trip taken by the Secretary General in 2016, which cost R680,000. The trip was under scrutiny for alleged irregular cash payments and loans, although investigated, Mbulula was never prosecuted.

Once the criminal force has captured these strategic individuals, Mashele continued, they can make orders about who should be arrested, who should not be arrested, and who should be released.

“They will sell their drugs, they will kill whoever they kill, because they know that they are not going to be arrested,” Mashele said. 

“Then they will make law enforcement agencies fight each other,” Mashele said. This creates confusion, in which cartels thrive.

This is how cartels operate in Colombia, according to the analyst. “We are now in a mafia state like Colombia. Thanks to Ramaphosa and the ANC.”

Mashele’s assertion aligns with that of North West University Political analyst, Professor Andre Duvenhage, who says South Africa qualifies as a mafia state, as it is difficult to differentiate between the political and criminal elites.

“The classic differentiation between a normal state and a mafia state is where you cannot clearly differentiate between the political and criminal elite,” he said in an interview with ENCA.

“In the South African context, there is a long history of evidence, which includes academic research, that this differentiation does not exist.”

This comes amidst the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry, as well as Parliament’s Ad-Hoc committee hearings into criminality, political interference and corruption in the Criminal Justice System.

They were set up following serious allegations by KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi.

Mkhwanazi implicated numerous high-ranking police officers, including Police Minister Senzo Mchunu, in having ties to criminal syndicates.

Recently published research from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime supports this claim, stating that the latest allegations, if found true, prove that not only has “the state been captured by criminals, but has itself become a criminal state.”

Researchers said that South Africa is at a tipping point on organised crime that can “no longer be ignored.”

Some estimates place the overall economic cost of such organised crime at R155 billion per year across sectors.

The second largest party in the Government of National Unity (GNU), the Democratic Alliance (DA), which is a partner to the ANC, has publicly and repeatedly called the country a mafia state. 

DA Spokesperson on Justice and Constitutional Development, Glynnis Breytenbach, said the “rot on display” in the Mkhwanazi case has been caused by the total collapse of the criminal justice system. 

“The reasons for the destruction of criminal justice and the rule of law in South Africa are complex and go back decades but its disastrous effects are simple, and are experienced throughout the country,” he said. 

South Africa watching something remarkable unfold