This country of second chances has one last shot at redemption

We knew long before 2017 that South Africa was a country being looted by a corrupt and incompetent elite. As early as 2013, when the Gupta family commandeered our busiest air force base as their personal bus stop, we realised that the rumours of the family’s influence over President Jacob Zuma had real substance. Then there was Nenegate. At the time, the removal of respected finance minister Nhlanhla Nene for little-known Des van Rooyen seemed inexplicable. No self-respecting school principal would hire this underwhelming buffoon to run a tuck shop, let alone oversee the economy of a country.

After Van Rooyen was summarily removed — having served a memorable four days as finance minister — it emerged that, when he arrived at the Treasury to warm his seat as the head honcho, he was accompanied by two advisers linked to the Guptas.

The Sunday Times also reported that Van Rooyen visited the Gupta compound in Saxonwold for seven consecutive days before his appointment as finance minister. Does it take only seven days to learn how to loot?

So, by the beginning of 2017, we knew our country had been irrevocably compromised. But it was only this year that the terrifying extent to which it has been captured by Zuma and his allies began to emerge.

In a series of exposés published in the Sunday Times, tens of thousands of leaked Gupta e-mails revealed a masterful game of chess that involved ministers, CEOs, board members and state-owned enterprises, all willing participants in the looting spree.

There were many shocking revelations. The Gupta brothers were sent Zuma pal Mosebenzi Zwane’s CV a month before he was appointed minister of mineral resources. Extremely useful for a family with large interests in the mining sector.

The brothers also intervened to have the powers of the then communications minister, Faith Muthambi, strengthened. She sent them confidential information on cabinet meetings.

The brothers had their CEO, a veteran journalist, prepare notes for ANC Youth League president Collen

Maine, advising him on how to respond to media questions about his relationship with the Guptas.

Even battle-hardened investigative journalists were stunned. This was not a few individuals with their busy fingers in the cookie jar. This was the whole cookie jar, hijacked to enrich an immigrant family and their good friend, the president.

Other significant revelations followed. Some of them even more frightening. Investigative journalist Jacques Pauw’s explosive book The President’s Keepers explained how a dirty tricks campaign was waged against officials of the South African Revenue Service in order to save Zuma from a hefty R63-million tax bill.

The book also details how South Africa descended into a virtual gangster state. Zuma put his experience as an Umkhonto weSizwe spy boss to good use, systematically destroying South Africa’s enforcement agencies in his bid to keep out of jail. To save his own skin, the president diminished the nation’s capability to tackle organised crime.

We will probably never know the whole truth behind Zuma and his personal journey. How does a committed young cadre who was willing to sacrifice 10 years of his life on Robben Island and risk death in exile as a MK soldier become the embodiment of corruption and greed?

If 2017 was the year we realised just how perilously we as a nation are hanging on by our fingernails over the precipice, thanks largely to our disastrous president, 2018 must be the year we fight the fight on all fronts to get back on the road Nelson Mandela envisaged for this land, a country with so many problems, but with so much promise.

There won’t be another chance.

This must be the year we fight to get back on the road Mandela envisaged