INVESTIGATION| Who Owns South Africa: The System- Money, Power and Politics

In 2025, South Africa entered the fourth decade of its democracy. Yet democracy has not yet delivered on creating a more equal society, South Africa faces staggering inequality. Unemployment sits at 33%—with youth joblessness above 46%—while over 28 million people rely on social grants to survive. At the same time, South Africa boasts Africa’s most advanced financial system, where banks, corporations, and executives record soaring profits.

This first profile in Open Secrets’ new series, Who Owns South Africa, explores the deep structural divide between the fragile “bottom” and the powerful corporate “top.” The System: Money, Power and Politics reveals how concentrated private wealth, oligopolies, and corporate dominance continue to shape South Africa’s economy and politics, and asks what this means for the struggle to end inequality.

Read and download the first profile below!