I also don't think it's a mafia state like, say, Russia is. It's just devolved into being a typical African country. Many years ago a South African friend of mine said "South Africa will end up like Zimbabwe, only it'll take a lot longer because it's got a lot further to fall". I haven't seen any sign of that not being the case.

It's also probably the first country ever to regress from first world back to more-or-less third world. Just look at things like SAA and Eskom for examples of what two decades of corruption and nepotism and theft can do to a formerly outstanding enterprise, and then spread that out across everything else.