Editor’s Desk: Truth & lies in the Agrizzi & state capture story

The long and ugly story of state capture has been filled with competing narratives – a kind of giant game of he said/she said/they said/he said. Over the last year, the testimony of Angelo Agrizzi – who has claimed that a near-death experience convinced him to speak out on his role and the role of others in state capture – held the nation spellbound at the Zondo inquiry. But Agrizzi’s account of what happened is, after all, only one side of the story. In this episode, Alec Hogg reflects on why Biznews got interesting in Agrizzi and how the story looks one year later. He discusses his interview with a member of the state-capture-implicated Watson clan, Valence Watson, and what light it sheds on the ongoing investigations into corruption and mismanagement in SA. Felicity Duncan and Alec also look at the bad behaviour of big tobacco companies and how large businesses worldwide abuse their power to enrich themselves.