Evidence of state capture laid bare

The first concrete evidence state capture is a reality came bubbling to the rim of a cauldron of corruption as the Hawks obtained warrants of arrest for one of the Gupta brothers and a number of their hangers-on. It is a start, echoing the lines “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive” by Sir Walter Scott – still as apposite in South Africa now as when they were written more than 200 years ago.

At the heart of the state’s dilemma is the belated acceptance that the matters raised in former public protector Thuli Madonsela’s State of Capture report must be answered amid the growing groundswell against the grasping Gupta family and their venal and corrupt associates.

It is common cause that any real movement on Madonsela’s findings have been frustrated at virtually every turn. There has also been escalating dissatisfaction about the snail’s pace which has been attributed to embattled National Director of Public Prosecutions Shaun Abrahams in pursuing the allegations of a wholesale rape of the fiscus.

It has taken a great wave of pressure from civil organisations – chief among them the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse, which provided a detailed indictment of the nefarious network – to progress this far. There is also the disclosure that the Asset Forfeiture Unit is homing in on the Guptas and their associates, who include senior politicians, to preserve assets worth R1.6 billion. The Guptas are also the business partners of President Jacob Zuma’s son, Duduzane.

The R1.6 billion, brought in terms of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act, includes an application against financial advisory firm McKinsey & Co, and Gupta-linked Trillian, formerly majority-owned by Gupta lieutenant Salim Essa, which syphoned off hundreds of millions of rands from Eskom.