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Who Owns South Africa? | Money, Power and Politics is the launch event of Open Secrets new investigative series Who Owns South Africa? (WOSA).

WOSA is an Open Secrets investigative series which provides in depth analysis of the powerful private players who control large parts of the South African economy. Looking at both the larger system and individual sectors of the country’s economy, the project aims to provide a detailed description of who controls the private sector.

The first profile in the series is The System: Money, Power, and Politics. This profile explores the fundamental characteristics of South Africa’s political economy that underpin power and control in the country. It explores a wide range of issues from financialisation, illicit financial flows, and debt, to the role of corporate lobbying, party funding, and procurement corruption.

At the launch, Mamello M will be in conversation with Michael Marchant, Head of Investigations at Open Secrets, and activist Phindile Kunene. The discussion will also feature contributions from key local civil society organisations.

Phindile KunenePhindile is an activist, thinker, feminist educator and strategist with over 10 years of experience designing political education programmes. She has developed curricula on topics ranging from economic justice to emancipatory futures for workers’ movements, women’s organisations, and young activists. Her work is grounded in advancing freedom and social justice, strengthening leadership, conceptual and creative capacities of activists and empowering ordinary people to act and shape society. She holds an MA in History from WITS.

Koketso MoetiKoketso Moeti has a long background in civic activism and has over the years worked at the intersection of governance, communication and people-power. She currently serves as the Founding Executive Director of amandla.mobi. In 2025 she was announced as a Charles F. Kettering Global Fellow. She is also an inaugural New Voices Advanced Advocacy fellow; inaugural Keseb Democracy fellow, a Mulago Foundation Rainer Arnhold fellow; an inaugural Collective Action in Tech fellow, inaugural Obama fellow, an Aspen Institute New Voices senior fellow, as well as an Atlantic senior fellow. Moeti also serves as a member of WITNESS’ Board of Directors; an expert Advisor to the World Economic Forum’s ‘Partnering with Civil Society in the Fourth Industrial Revolution‘ initiative and a founding reference group member for the Civic Tech Innovation Network. She is an alumnus of the Inclusive Global Leadership Initiative (IGLI) summer institute, hosted by the Sié Chéou-Kang Center at the University of Denver.

Michael MarchantMichael is the Head of Investigations Unit at Open Secrets. He leads a team of investigators working to uncover the role of powerful private actors in corruption, economic crimes, and illicit financial flows. He is interested in revealing how our economic and political systems entrench impunity and enable crime, and how this can be changed. Michael was the lead researcher on Apartheid Guns and Money: A Tail of Profit (2017), and co-author of The Unaccountables: The powerful politicians and corporations who profit from impunity (2022).

Mamello MMamello is the Head of Campaigns at Open Secrets and steering committee member of the Corruption Tracker. She is the WOSA event series host. She leads work on Open Secrets’ communications, campaigns and collaboration efforts. Mamello is a creative who is passionate about anti-fascism, peace and transitional justice. Before joining Open Secrets, Mamello worked for the Institute for Justice Reconciliation (IJR) and the International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ). Mamello is co-author of The Unaccountables: The powerful politicians and corporations who profit from impunity (2022).