Congratulations to the ANC! The governing party has started a debate that will hopefully culminate in the country's liberation from the onset of a post-94 colonial project.

South Africa has been home to painful colonial schemes.

The first was the British colonial system set up to benefit the English. It was followed by the apartheid colonial system that benefitted Afrikaners and the English.

Both systems required indigenous collaborators to thrive.

Since its establishment in 1912 the ANC fought both.

The 1994 democratic order put an end to the apartheid system and sought to build a nonracial future for all South Africans.

Now it seems we are once again up for grabs for a very sophisticated third wave of domination. Call it the post-94 colonial project.

Unlike the British one, this new project is not linked to a world-dominating empire. And unlike the Afrikaner apartheid rule, the post-94 project is not driven by people who have no other country other than South Africa.

But the previous scheme and the current one have a similar effect: to smash the African and his system of government.

For some time the ANC, Cosatu and the SA Communist Party kept quiet about this project whose aims is to take control of the democratic state and shift it from its mandate of serving the public to being a vehicle for private accumulation.

Realising that keeping quiet could mean they were tacitly endorsing the dangerous project, the ANC and its allies decided to discuss it openly at the ANC national executive committee lekgotla last week.

It was a good start. It's not too late to address the problem - hence the rare congratulatory note one is sending to Luthuli House via this humble page.

ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe was the first to speak openly about some ANC members who have been "captured" by the new business elite.

In an interview with this newspaper Mantashe said the ANC has not been captured; individuals have. But, he said, these captured individuals are seeking to influence the governing party.

But Mantashe was understandably mild in his assessment.

The capture is not directed at the ANC. The governing party is merely the vehicle. Patrimonialism - an insidious form of authoritarian corruption - is the method. The state and its subsidiary entities are the real, ultimate targets.

Political scientist Francis Fukuyama says human beings have always been prone to favour relatives and friends in transactions of any kind.

What distinguishes modern humans is their ability to set up institutions whose main purpose is to tame this natural inclination to be corrupt.

Modern institutions such as the constitution and the rule of law are meant to ensure the relationships between government leaders and citizens are not governed by friendships or family connections.

Modern state institutions must be based on impersonal relationships.

You must get what you deserve purely on the basis of merit.

Equality means everyone has equal opportunities and no one is ahead of others by virtue of friendships at the highest level of government. Public power is used rationally in the public interests.

Friendships with those in higher places must not count for anything.

In a modern system like the one we aspire to build, those who place considerations other than what is stated in the rules and laws, including empowerment legislation, must be punished.

A state is modern and dynamic if it has the means and capacity to unleash this punishment consistently, irrespective of the status of those implicated in wrongdoing.

Failure to do so means, by default, the return to the state of nature where the interests of the tribe, family, friends and cronies take precedent over the public interest.

Africans are supposed to be very harsh on foreigners who treat their leaders as a gateway to access public resources through questionable arrangements.

The conduct of foreigners - including those who might have been naturalised - who behave in this manner seems to be based on the stereotypical notion that Africans are generally corrupt.

These corrupt Africans, it is presumed, are prepared to forsake all that is noble for the benefit of kin and belly.

Having learned from the tragic failures of other countries whose leaders were lured by corrupt neocolonialists to giving away their riches in exchange for small crumbs, South Africans constructed a sound modern post-apartheid dispensation.

This dispensation has clear rules about the awarding of state licences and contracts, among other things.

Thanks to the ANC-led government, these rules have been strengthened over the years.

This notwithstanding, the circumstances under which the Guptas are securing business deals leave a sour taste in the mouths of many South Africans.

President Jacob Zuma is said to have been "captured" by the Guptas in what could be seen as an onset of the third wave of complex colonial machinations.

Maybe Zuma is right in arguing that the Guptas are just friends and they incidentally do business with his son. Maybe they are good at spotting opportunities.

Whatever the case, the ANC must continue to critically examine their role in state capture and the implications for our nascent democracy. Failing which voters will ask who is at the helm of the state and on whose behalf? Does it matter that there are elections every five years?

The fact that the ANC and its allies are concerned about this shows that there are sober minds in the governing party. They need encouragement.