For years, South Africans sat glued to their screens, watching a live-streamed autopsy of their own state.We watched as corporate captures, compromised politicians and systemic greed were laid bare before various panels, most notably the Zondo Commission and more recent inquiries like the Madlanga Commission investigating criminality within law enforcement.

We were promised that exposure would bring erasure.Yet, years after the final reports were bound and handed over, a heavy question hangs over the national psyche: what did we actually buy with those billions?

When evaluating the true return on investment of South Africa's anti-corruption apparatus, we must look past the political rhetoric and interrogate four stark pillars: societal growth, statistical reality, the complicated role of existing anti-graft agencies and fiscal necessity.

If we measure societal gain purely by the number of high-profile orange overalls in our prisons, we have gained next to nothing.The psychological toll on a society that witnesses absolute proof of theft without witnessing absolute consequence is severe.

It breeds deep public cynicism and a dangerous sense of collective helplessness, leaving citizens wondering if commissions are simply a tool to manage political fallout rather than enforce justice.

However, to say society gained nothing is to miss the subtle shift in our national foundations.What these commissions truly bought us was the death of denialism.Before these inquiries, corruption was a matter of political narrative, easily dismissed by perpetrators as factional battles, racial targeting or media conspiracies.

Today, state capture is an undeniable, legally documented historical fact.

Society gained an archive of truth, 1.7 million pages of evidence from the Zondo Commission that no future administration can rewrite or erase.We gained a blueprint of exactly how our state systems were breached, which has already forced critical legislative shifts like the Public Procurement Act.

We also gained a renewed validation for whistleblowers, whose voices were elevated from lonely dissidents to national heroes, fundamentally altering the landscape of civic activism and forcing draft pieces like the Protected Disclosures Bill into public consultation.

When we pivot to the raw statistics, the balance sheet becomes deeply polarised.On one side of the ledger, the financial recoveries are undeniable.The Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) and the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) have clawed back roughly R11 billion in state capture-related assets and funds, according to updates published by the SIU (www.siu.org.za).Mathematically, against the roughly R1 billion cost of running the Zondo Commission, that represents a tangible eleven-to-one financial return on investment.

Yet, external metrics tell a completely different story, revealing that financial recovery does not equal systemic cleanliness.Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) continues to place South Africa around a score of 41, well below the global average (www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2024).

Statistically, the world does not see South Africa as cleaner; it merely sees us as more self-aware.

This is backed heavily by Afrobarometer surveys, where over 90% of citizens consistently report that the government is failing to handle corruption. The recent testimony before the Madlanga Commission underscores why public trust remains frozen.

Experts revealed that despite rampant allegations of police corruption, not a single full lifestyle audit had been successfully escalated or executed on senior police officials over a five-year period.

The statistics prove a painful paradox: we are remarkably good at calculating the theft but utterly paralysed when it comes to prosecuting the thieves.As political analyst Steven Friedman has repeatedly argued, exposing corruption and punishing corruption are not the same institutional task; one can succeed while the other fails.

To understand how South Africa arrived at this point, we must look at the role existing anti-corruption agencies played throughout the establishment of these commissions.

Agencies like the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), the Hawks (DPCI) and internal police oversight bodies did not fail to stop state capture because they lacked evidence; they failed because they were the primary targets of the coup.Executive capturing intentionally hollowed out leadership, neutralised investigative powers and turned vital institutions into political shields.

Consequently, throughout the life of these inquiries, these agencies occupied a deeply conflicted space.While independent units like the SIU actively worked alongside the commissions to trace funds, other sectors of law enforcement were exposed as deeply compromised.The ongoing Madlanga Commission has pulled back the curtain on this exact crisis, revealing how senior figures within criminal justice structures allegedly colluded with criminal syndicates.Shockingly, recent testimonies even detailed how senior investigators within the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption (IDAC) allegedly extorted the very businesses they were meant to protect.

However, looking back, we must question the long-term fiscal strategy of relying on temporary inquiries.Commissions are fact-finding bodies, not courts; they possess no inherent power to arrest, charge or convict.

While billions were poured into temporary panels to build a mountain of evidence, the everyday criminal justice system was left chronically underfunded, struggling to convert that very evidence into trial-ready dockets.

The commissions succeeded at diagnosis but they were never equipped to provide the cure.

In essence, we spent billions building a magnificent lighthouse to shine a light on the shipwreck, while leaving the rescue boats without fuel.

This institutional paralysis is precisely why the National Anti-Corruption Advisory Council (NACAC) handed down a final report recommending the dissolution of this fractured framework in favour of a permanent, constitutionally entrenched Office of Public Integrity (OPI).Civil society organisations, including Corruption Watch, have publicly called for a timeline for implementing these reforms (www.corruptionwatch.org.za).They argue that existing agencies are too structurally damaged to convert commission evidence into convictions without a completely independent, overarching authority.

This brings us to the final, most uncomfortable question: was the multi-billion-rand price tag necessary?From a purely systemic standpoint, yes.The haemorrhaging of state-owned enterprises like Eskom and Transnet could not be stopped without a surgical, independent extraction of the facts.Because traditional law enforcement agencies were compromised from within, temporary commissions were the only mechanism capable of operating with enough political insulation to conduct investigations of this magnitude.They were a necessary, albeit expensive, emergency triage.

Ultimately, "the price of exposure" was a fee South Africa had no choice but to pay.We could not begin to fix a broken state without first understanding the precise mechanisms of its destruction.The commissions succeeded at diagnosis but they were never equipped to provide the cure.

If these commissions are remembered only as incredibly expensive talk shops that resulted in zero political accountability, then the billions spent will have been a tragic waste of public funds.

The statistics tell us we have recovered the money and society tells us we have uncovered the truth.Now, the only question that matters is whether our criminal justice system has the courage and structural independence to turn that expensive truth into handcuffs.

Patric Tsotetsi is a Master's Student in Political Studies at North-West University.His research focuses on corruption, governance and the effectiveness of South Africa's anti-corruption institutions since 2018.