Breathtaking era of shameless plunder laid bare

DES VAN Rooyen’s testimony before the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into State Capture gave us some insight into the reason the public purse was looted with such rapaciousness during the Zuma years: those involved had absolutely no shame.

Van Rooyen began his testimony on Tuesday with a political speech during which he tried to deflect blame and attention from himself, instead trying to turn the focus to “white capital” and “the white-owned media”, which he said were responsible for inequality and the economic woes of the country, and for his tarnished reputation.

The white establishment had formed an “evil alliance” with the ANC “to continue with their exploitative wealth accumulation programme at the expense of the National Development Plan”, he said, calling on Judge Raymond Zondo to extend his commission’s terms of reference to include apartheid-era state capture.

Van Rooyen did not mention the R500 billion lost almost instantaneously as the markets reacted to his controversial appointment as finance minister, or the approximately R1.5 trillion lost during Jacob Zuma’s reign – no shame.

He also had no shame in telling the commission that he had appointed two men as his advisers despite barely knowing them, their qualifications or examining their resumes. But he still maintained that the men, Mohamed Bobat and Ian Whitley – then son-inlaw of ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte – had been hired on “merit”, despite Bobat’s links to Regiments Capital, about which there had been allegations of malfeasance.

And despite Van Rooyen being minister for only four days – Zuma was forced to replace him with Pravin Gordhan as the markets tanked – his advisers still managed to circulate a confidential Treasury report, intended for the Cabinet, to Bobat’s former boss at Trillian and to a generic email address linked to the Guptas’ network.

Van Rooyen took great offence to people associated with Zuma being labelled as corrupt, a narrative he said was perpetuated by media owned by whites. Again, there was no mention of the orgy of looting which took place under the former president’s watch.

There is certainly merit in Van Rooyen’s call for an investigation into apartheid-era state capture – no one doubts corruption existed in that time too – but let’s first address the present, before delving into the past.