By Prof Joseph Sekhampu

For millions of South Africans, the struggle for water, electricity or safety has become routine. The queues for basic services grow longer, while those in power grow richer. It feels like chaos, yet what if this dysfunction is not a sign of failure, but evidence of how the state now works? The revelations from the Madlanga Commission remind us that what we call crisis may, in truth, be design.

The commission has exposed how political power, state institutions and private enrichment have become intertwined. But these revelations are not anomalies. They confirm a reality long visible to citizens: the South African state has evolved into a mechanism of controlled dysfunction, one that rewards loyalty over competence and dependence over autonomy.

The concept of the neo-patrimonial state, drawn from political science, captures this dynamic. It refers to systems where formal state structures coexist with informal networks of patronage and favour. Public office becomes a resource for private gain, and the line between state and ruling party disappears. The constitution, parliament and official procedures remain intact, but the real work of governance unfolds in the shadows through alliances, debts and the exchange of loyalty.

In South Africa, this fusion has become symbiotic. The modern state exists, but it has been repurposed as a channel for private and political accumulation.

When the ANC took power in 1994, it inherited not only the machinery of a deeply unequal state, but also the expectation of having to deliver rapid material change for millions excluded from the economy. Yet, without dismantling the structure of capital accumulation or redistributing wealth meaningfully, the state became the main vehicle for economic inclusion.

This gave rise to political gatekeeping. Access to jobs, contracts and opportunities became embedded in networks of allegiance. Cadre deployment, initially meant to align and transform, ossified into a system of factional control. Over time, loyalty replaced competence as the currency of advancement.

This is the hallmark of the neo-patrimonial state: the privatisation of public authority. The mayor is not just a public servant; she is a patron. The municipal manager is not merely an administrator; he is a gatekeeper. Service delivery collapses not because of ignorance, but because dysfunction sustains the system. Broken infrastructure and endless emergencies create tenders, budgets and channels for enrichment. The water problem, for instance, persists not from incapacity, but because each new failure justifies tenders for water tankers: an emergency economy where greased palms flourish while taps run dry.

National institutions falter not because their mandates are unclear, but because genuine effectiveness would undermine the networks that sustain political power. A capable civil service would make patronage redundant. Integrity would erode control. The result is a system that resists reform by design. Ours is not a failure to modernise; it is a deliberate choice to personalise the state so that power and privilege remain tightly managed.

Similar patterns exist across the continent, but South Africa’s version is marked by institutional sophistication. Our judiciary, treasury and civil society still hold formal strength, yet their functionality collides with the informal logic of patronage. The Madlanga Commission is only the latest mirror reflecting a truth long visible: that the promise of democratic governance continues to be undermined by the hidden economy of political exchange.

So, what is to be done?

We must begin by naming the system for what it is. Reforms that ignore the incentive structures of patronage will continue to fail. Anti-corruption agencies, technocratic fixes and even coalition politics will not work unless the political settlement itself is reimagined. That means building a new compact where political legitimacy is earned not through redistribution of patronage, but through delivery of public value.

Perhaps the greatest myth we tell ourselves is that the state has failed. The reality may be more disturbing: it has succeeded, though not in the ways we hoped. It has succeeded in insulating elites, in trading dignity for dependence, and in converting dysfunction into profit. The state is not broken. It is perfected to protect those who thrive in its decay.

The question, then, is not whether reform is necessary, but whether we still possess the moral courage to reclaim the state from those who perfected its decay.

Prof Joseph Sekhampu is the director of the North-West University Business School.

Prof Joseph Sekhampu