It's official: the South African state is bankrupt. President Cyril Ramaphosa confirmed it three weeks ago when he responded to questions in parliament.

Ramaphosa's exact words were: "Our resources are now depleted."

In simple terms, this means the government has run out of money.

In a normal country, such a statement by the head of state would have, at best, made national headlines. That it went unnoticed reveals a great deal about our journalists' obsession with the fluff that constitutes the vacuity of our daily politics.

If you want to understand what it means for a state to run out of money, look at South African Express. It has grounded its planes. Last week, it told MPs it is struggling to pay salaries.

SA Express is not unique. Employees at Denel are not sure for how long their salaries will be paid. Eskom pays salaries from debt. It needs about R70bn for operations and debts. But its revenue is about R30bn.

Those who work for government departments must not think that their salaries are safe either. After state-owned companies have been bankrupted, the rot is coming their way. When Zimbabwe collapsed, the financial mess eventually reached nurses and teachers.

A collapsing banana republic protects its security forces from salary shortages because politicians know that if they are not paid, the police and the army can use their guns to extract rent from citizens.

There was a time in the last days of Robert Mugabe's regime when there were roadblocks across the country, where citizens were expected to pay bribes to the police for every nonsensical small thing. Even today, the police in Zimbabwe are still bribe collectors.