When I was an advertising executive in Ireland, we had a campaign for the Irish Post Office using a motto from Douglas Adams’s Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. "Is your mail late? Don't panic! It's not like aliens are blowing up the world" (that’s how Adams’s book began). Adams agreed we could use it, for a fee. Then, just before contract signing, he died. Everybody ran through the agency yelling "panic!" That taught me something about panic: one needn't panic until there’s really no hope. You need not just a smoking gun but a dead body, because a body won’t suddenly sign a contract. Stories about impending disaster could turn out to be just somebody’s imagination. That, after all, is Jacob Zuma’s position on state capture. Do we have reason to panic here? Since Cyril Ramaphosa began his corruption clean-up by replacing the boards of some state-owned companies, it has become apparent the capture network descends to middle managers. All are intent on ensuring no-one is prosecuted, be...

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