Turned to ashes

So here it is — el Gordo, il capo di tutti capi, the schlenter to end all schlenters, the most brazen of scams that sums up the putrefaction of the body politic under the Jacob Zuma administration.

If there were a secretive academy located up some remote Alpine peak where the young and promising middle managers of the criminal syndicates of the world went to fine-tune their skills in extortion and influence peddling, the Optimum Coal story would be the case study at the top of the curriculum.

It started so promisingly: a nice little operation put together by some experienced practitioners of the pick and shovel, then flogged for a decent price to the deep pockets of Glencore and its empowerment partner, a certain Cyril Ramaphosa.

It should have been a simple matter of keeping on shovelling up the good stuff and delivering it to the local power station, but then Eskom turned nasty and before you could say “dodgier than a nine-dollar note”, you had a planeload of Guptas turning up with a minister of mines in their pocket and an offer the Swiss couldn’t refuse. There was the small matter of paying for the transaction, but fortunately Eskom did a sharp turn from being Ebenezer Scrooge to playing Father Christmas.

It should have been trebles all round and heavy suitcases to Dubai — until it turned out that the Guptas were better at getting their mitts on an asset than making it work. Now salaries haven’t been paid, and the workers have downed tools, and this sordid little saga is coming to an undignified end.