Vincent Smith is going to jail. It only took a decade.

Vincent Smith is finally going to jail after a decade. His Bosasa corruption conviction marks the first major state-capture accountability from the Zondo Commission — a small win in a long fight.

For years, the Zondo Commission felt like a very expensive, very thorough exercise in documenting corruption that would never actually lead anywhere. Name after name, scandal after scandal… and then silence from prosecutors, mostly. So when former ANC MP Vincent Smith was sentenced to an effective seven years in prison last week for his role in the Bosasa corruption saga, it landed differently. Because this case has actually led to accountability.

The details are grim, as they tend to be with Bosasa. Smith, who chaired parliament’s portfolio committee on justice and correctional services (the very committee meant to hold the system to account), was on the take. Bosasa, the facilities-management company that wormed its way into billions worth of government contracts, allegedly paid Smith in security upgrades to his Gauteng home and cash funnelled through his company, Euroblitz. In return, Smith used his parliamentary position to shield Bosasa from scrutiny. He also failed to declare about R28 million in company income to Sars. The judge didn’t mince words, calling corruption a scourge that needed to be addressed decisively. Smith pleaded guilty and reached a plea deal with the state, which is how he got seven years instead of twelve.

The significance here isn’t just in the sentence, but what it represents. This is the first major state-capture conviction to come out of years of Zondo Commission findings. The commission has identified dozens of implicated figures, from Jacob Zuma to former mineral resources minister Mosebenzi Zwane to former SAA chairperson Dudu Myeni, and the wait for consequences has been long enough to feel permanent. Smith’s conviction is a crack in that wall.

But let’s not get carried away. One conviction, via plea deal, of a figure who was relatively far from the top of the state capture food chain, is certainly progress. But it’s not a full reckoning. Many of the bigger names remain untouched, and the few cases that have resulted in prosecution – such that of former public enterprises minister Malusi Gigaba, for alleged kickbacks he received in relation to a Transnet deal – are still wending their way through the court system. This means the National Prosecuting Authority has a lot more work to do before anyone can credibly claim the wheels of justice are turning. Smith’s case took longer than it should have, and many of the people who benefited far more extravagantly from state capture are still living their best lives.

What this moment does do is send a signal – that the political class is not entirely untouchable. Whether the NPA has the appetite and the capacity to pursue the rest of the people implicated is the real question. For now, we’ll take the small win. It’s been a long time coming.