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Over the past 2 presidential terms, South Africa has been rocked by scandal-after-scandal relating to the supposed “capture” of state machinery for the gain of private individuals and their respective networks.

In 2016, the Public Protector revealed a jarring picture of how deep this capture may have been going- even to where positions in cabinet were lobbied for, not within part-political structures, but even outside of these democratically permissible spaces.

Just as citizens were recovering from the ‘State of Capture’ report, they were then thrown further by the release of esteemed investigative journalist’s, Jacque Pauws, book called “The President’s Keepers”. Much of the above has already been widely reported in various media, but it would be remiss of us to think that that’s where these issues end.

Economist and PhD candidate at the University of KwaZulu Natal (UKZN) Ayanda Meyiwa at the Public Forum on the 31st of August 2018 unpacked the narrative of State Owned Enterprises (SOE’s) and State Capture at the Onomo Hotel in Durban.

“When I received the invite to this engagement, I got excited since I am a PhD candidate, my preoccupation is studying the state’s mission as to how it uses it SOE’s for economic development.South Africa has a privately-owned central bank whose sole mandate is to regulate inflation and to curb credit spending so that the business cycle remains stable” said Mewiya.

The forum was mainly attended by youth, civil society organization and ordinary citizens from around KZN and the Durban area.