Zondo 2: How the Guptas shovelled billions of rand from Transnet, Denel to their criminal enterprise
Look, South Africa, do not become dismissive, complacent, tired or irritated by the continuous stream of revelations about corruption - because the only way we're going to defeat it is to know how the crooked and the bent operate.
Part 2 of Acting Chief Justice Raymond Zondo's report into allegations of state capture delivers yet more compelling evidence of an organised criminal network enabled and supported by the ANC and Jacob Zuma, the establishment of sophisticated networks of extraction and a raiding party led by the Gupta brothers.
Part 1, released a month ago, set out in detail how the Guptas tested the waters by conniving with ANC cadres in channelling money to their propaganda arm, The New Age. It also unravelled events at SAA and the SA Revenue Service, and set out how institutions were gutted and repurposed in favour of the capture crooks.
Zondo and the authors of the report have in Part 2 constructed a clear picture of the Guptas' organisation, and describe it as "a racketeering enterprise", which carries with it clear legal implications. The manner in which they were able to repeat their modus operandi at every state-owned company they targeted (pliant minister, subservient board, dodgy chief executives) is a searing indictment on the ANC and government. The Guptas were simply allowed to run amok.
There's no doubt that Part 3 is going to be a bombshell. We must still traverse Eskom, the intelligence services and Bosasa. And Zondo is clearly gearing up to make some far-reaching recommendations. One of which should be that Zuma must be investigated, with the purposes of charging him with corruption. No doubt his flunkeys, like Malusi Gigaba, will protest and claim victimisation.
But, like Judge President Dunstan Mlambo said on Thursday during his interview for chief justice: "We judge cases on the basis of the facts before us."
And, on the facts, Zuma, Gigaba and the rest of them should be worried.
In this week's Friday Briefing, new head of Corruption Watch Karam Singh and his colleague, Tharin Pillay, Outa's Wayne Duvenage and analyst Ebrahim Harvey write about the repercussions of part 2 of the Zondo report.
Best,
Pieter du Toit
Assistant Editor.
Solutions abound to SA's graft problem - political will, not so much
South Africa has no shortage of solutions to its corruption challenges, write Corruption Watch's Karam Singh and Tharin Pillay. However, it has a serious lack of political will to implement the numerous recommendations and changes needed to fight the scourge - and the window of opportunity for action won't stay open forever.
Zondo has joined the dots but are we likely to see oversight and enforcement?
South Africa has an enormous amount of work to do, if we are to ensure the knife-edge option of a failed state is averted. And we have one massive catalyst that we can use to take the country on a path of recovery - the Zondo Commission's state capture report, writes Wayne Duvenage.
Zondo Commission report: Will we finally see action from Ramaphosa?
Cyril Ramaphosa needs to act decisively and according to promises he made when he took office in 2018, unlike he previously has done, and act on the Zondo Commission report's recommendations, argues Ebrahim Harvey.
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