The ANC inherited debt at 50% of GDP, cut it to 28%, and ran the first budget surplus since the formation of the Union of South Africa. Then, after 2008, debt nearly tripled to around 80%. Bheki Mahlobo walks Gabriel Makin through his analysis of the fall and the rise of South Africa's debt, the Mandela warning that drove thirteen years of fiscal prudence, and why the developmental state that worked is not given enough credit.