State capture took R57 billion. Here is where it went, and why so few went to jail

R57.3 billion.

That is the money that flowed through contracts tied to state capture, according to the Zondo Commission's report as tallied by the Mail & Guardian. The government says one RDP house costs it R255,364 to build.

Do the sum and you get about 224,000 houses. That is roughly six years of the 36,202 subsidy houses the housing department planned to deliver in 2025/26.

Or take NSFAS. Its budget for 2025/26 is R51 billion. The Zondo figure would have paid for every NSFAS student for more than a year.

And R57 billion is the small number.

How much did state capture cost South Africa?

In October 2019, President Cyril Ramaphosa told a Financial Times summit in London that state capture had cost the country more than R500 billion. Nobody has audited that total. But Ramaphosa's own estimate would buy nearly 2 million RDP houses, or close to ten years of NSFAS.

The inquiry itself was not cheap. ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula said in July 2025 that the commission cost about R1 billion.

The state says it has clawed back R11 billion so far. That figure, from a Presidency update in July 2025, includes settlements from ABB (R2.55 billion), SAP (R1.16 billion) and McKinsey (R1.12 billion). The companies paid. The people mostly have not.

Photo: eNCA (eNews Channel Africa) / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

What did the Zondo Commission find?

The commission's report came out in six parts between January and June 2022. Follow the findings and you can trace the money.

Start with Transnet. The report found contracts worth about R41.2 billion were irregularly awarded to benefit entities linked to the Gupta family or their associates, Daily Maverick reported. Transnet alone made up 72.2% of all state capture contracts. Zondo found reasonable grounds to believe former Transnet bosses Brian Molefe, Siyabonga Gama and Anoj Singh may have committed corruption, and recommended they be investigated.

Together with Transnet, Eskom accounted for more than 97% of the R57 billion, according to the M&G's count.

At SAA, long before the report, in May 2020, the Pretoria High Court had declared former SAA chair Dudu Myeni a delinquent director for life. Judge Ronel Tolmay called her "a director gone rogue".

At Bosasa, Zondo found that corruption was Bosasa's way of doing business. He recommended that Jacob Zuma, Gwede Mantashe and Nomvula Mokonyane be investigated. All three have denied wrongdoing, and none has faced a Bosasa trial.

Arms maker Denel got its own volume, describing what the report called a pattern of corrupt behaviour. In total, the Presidency counted 218 recommendations for criminal investigation.

Who has actually gone to jail for state capture?

Very few people.

By March 2025, only 21% of those 218 cases had been finalised or enrolled for trial, the Presidency admitted. Four state capture cases had ended in guilty verdicts.

The biggest name so far is Vincent Smith. In March 2026 the former ANC MP was sentenced to seven years in prison after a plea deal. He admitted taking gratification from Bosasa, including security upgrades at his home and payments through his company. He was the first high-profile political figure convicted over allegations from the Zondo Commission.

"The wheels of justice finally got in motion," said national prosecutions head Andy Mothibi.

Bosasa whistleblower Angelo Agrizzi first testified about the bribes in January 2019. Smith was sentenced more than seven years later.

Other cases collapsed. The first state capture trial, the R24.9 million Nulane case in the Free State, ended in April 2023. The judge discharged the accused for lack of evidence. News24 called it a humiliation for the NPA, which said it would appeal.

In November 2023, the R2.2 billion Kusile corruption case against former Eskom boss Matshela Koko and others was struck off the roll for unreasonable delay. The NPA said it was "not an acquittal". Koko denies wrongdoing.

Why did the Gupta brothers never come back?

Atul and Rajesh Gupta were arrested in Dubai in June 2022. South Africa sent its extradition request in July.

On 13 February 2023, a Dubai court refused the request. South Africa only found out on 6 April. Then-justice minister Ronald Lamola said the government learnt of it "with shock and dismay".

The brothers left the UAE and are believed to be living in India, Daily Maverick reported in September 2026. Interpol red notices for both are still active, and the NPA is working through legal assistance requests with the UAE and India.

The Guptas have always denied wrongdoing.

Photo: Bruce Paulmac / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Is Eskom still being robbed?

Eskom's two new coal giants tell the story in numbers. Medupi and Kusile were budgeted at about R79 billion and R81 billion. Cost to completion swelled to about R154 billion and R146 billion.

In 2023, former Eskom CEO André de Ruyter went further. In his book and TV interviews he alleged that criminal cartels were taking more than R1 billion a month from Eskom, and that senior politicians were linked to them.

The ANC hit back hard. Mbalula called the allegations irresponsible and baseless. Gwede Mantashe, then minister of mineral resources and energy, challenged De Ruyter to name the ministers. De Ruyter has not named them in public.

What happened with VBS, Digital Vibes and Covid PPE money?

VBS Mutual Bank collapsed in 2018 after about R1.9 billion was looted, according to the forensic investigation. Fourteen municipalities disclosed losses of R1.6 billion. Much of that was ratepayers' money, parked in a bank that then went bust.

Former CFO Philip Truter got an effective seven years in 2020. Former chair Tshifhiwa Matodzi got an effective 15 years in July 2024. Both took plea deals.

Digital Vibes was a R150 million health department contract during Covid. The SIU found that then-health minister Zweli Mkhize directly influenced the award, and that his family benefited by about R4 million. Mkhize resigned in August 2021. He has fought the findings in court, arguing the SIU probe was tainted by "stark irregularities".

Covid PPE spending was worse. The SIU probed R14.3 billion in contracts and found 62% of the finalised ones irregular. It made 386 referrals to the NPA.

In August 2026, MPs heard that PPE cases had produced just 17 jail terms without the option of a fine.

What do we actually know?

What we know

• Zondo found state capture happened, and named people and companies.
• R11 billion has been recovered, mostly from companies.
• A former ANC MP, a VBS chairman and a VBS CFO are among the few in prison.
• The Guptas are still outside South Africa.

What we don't know

• The true total. R500 billion is an estimate, not an audit.
• How many of the 218 referrals will ever reach a courtroom.
• Whether the Transnet trial will start in 2027 as hoped.
• Who De Ruyter's alleged politicians are.

What is Phala Phala, and is Ramaphosa being impeached?

In 2020 thieves stole about US$580,000 in cash hidden in a sofa at Ramaphosa's Phala Phala farm. Ramaphosa says the money came from selling 20 buffalo to a Sudanese businessman. He denies wrongdoing.

A Section 89 panel found in November 2022 that he may have a case to answer. Parliament voted 214 to 148 to throw the report out. The Public Protector cleared him, the Reserve Bank found no exchange control breach, and in October 2024 the NPA declined to prosecute anyone.

Then, in May 2026, the Constitutional Court ruled that Parliament's 2022 vote was unlawful. A 31-member impeachment committee was set up. In July, Ramaphosa won an interdict halting its hearings while he challenges the panel report. Judgment was reserved on 4 September.

Did anything change after the ANC lost its majority?

In May 2024, the ANC fell from 57.5% to 40.18% of the vote and formed a Government of National Unity with the DA and nine other parties.

The prosecutors are still struggling. In August 2026, MPs heard that the Hawks had a 49% vacancy rate. The Investigating Directorate Against Corruption, known as IDAC, lost its head Andrea Johnson in July 2026 after a bruising week at the Madlanga Commission. It still has no permanent leader. The DA has now proposed shutting IDAC down and replacing it with an independent anti-corruption body.

Cadre deployment, the ANC policy of placing loyal members in state jobs, was found unconstitutional and unlawful by Zondo. The DA then went to court for the ANC's deployment records. The Constitutional Court ordered the ANC to hand them over, and the High Court later found it in contempt for handing over redacted papers.

The daily leaks continue too. Only 39 of 257 municipalities got clean audits for 2024/25, the Auditor-General reported. Municipalities wasted R6.36 billion in that year alone, mostly on interest and penalties for paying suppliers late.

That money lands on the same households already squeezed by each new petrol price jump and by bank fees like the ones that left FNB customers staring at negative balances. It also feeds the anger behind the push for Western Cape independence. Questions about who really steers the state, including China's growing influence in South Africa, are a separate story we are following.

Photo: Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

What does the ANC say?

The party says it is cleaning house. It adopted a step-aside rule in 2021, under which members facing serious criminal charges must leave their posts. Its 2026 candidate rules bar anyone whom the party's Integrity Commission has told to step aside, once the leadership approves it.

"The ANC today does not take responsibility for individual members caught in corruption," Mbalula said in September 2025. "You are caught, you are charged." He insisted the ANC is not corrupt but fights corruption every day.

Ramaphosa told the commission in 2021 that as deputy president he chose to "remain but resist". Zondo was not convinced. He found Ramaphosa should have acted, and said there was surely enough credible information to prompt him to.

Will anyone ever pay?

Watch the calendar.

On 23 October 2026, former public enterprises minister Malusi Gigaba, Molefe, Gama, Singh and former procurement officer Thamsanqa Jiyane are due back in the Johannesburg High Court in the R54 billion Transnet locomotives case. They are presumed innocent. IDAC hopes to be trial-ready by March 2027.

On 18 January 2027, former ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule returns to court in the R255 million Free State asbestos case. He denies wrongdoing and calls the case political.

Any day now, the Western Cape High Court will rule on the Phala Phala report. And by the end of October, MPs are due to decide what they recommend for IDAC's future.

Zondo did his part. He named the people, the companies and the contracts.

Now, one court date at a time, South Africa finds out whether R57 billion has a price.