Not a banana republic, maybe a Guptocracy?

DESPITE protests from the government and ANC officials that we are “not a banana republic”, the Gupta family enjoy a favoured status that is spectacularly out of kilter with the notions of democracy and fair play enshrined in the constitution.

More than two years ago, the family landed a jet bringing about 200 guests to a wedding at Sun City, and were given a blue-light escort to the resort, where African waiters had been put on notice to have their teeth well brushed so as not to offend these visiting luminaries. Leading figures in the ANC were apparently ashamed, but the shame did not reach as high as the top office.

President Jacob Zuma is said to have defended the family’s actions on the spurious grounds that Air Force Base Waterkloof was not a national key point — a status afforded to Nkandla, though — but a “strategic key point”. This ultra-fine distinction from a man not known for giving attention to the small print of the rules. It may be no coincidence that support for the Guptas came from Zuma himself and, inevitably, it will have raised questions about one family’s apparently undue influence on South Africa’s public life.

According to the BBC, Atul Gupta — one of three brothers who moved here from India in 1993 — was amazed at the lack of red tape he found here compared with India. In the free-for-all of Zuma’s reign, they have become insanely wealthy.

Given that business complains daily about the growing tangle of red tape inhibiting profitable operations, the absence of bureaucratic hurdles could only have been Atul’s personal experience.

And this week, our exposé of the apparent special treatment given to Gupta-owned coal mines supplying Eskom again suggests the influence of friends in high places. When a Gupta mine supplies coal that is found to be substandard and not fit for use in Eskom’s boilers, what happens? Simple — a top Eskom executive dispenses with protocol, and any pesky red tape there might have been seems to disappear. Quality-assurance staff are suspended and the coal is tested — and tested again. Laboratories that Eskom uses to test its coal are put on notice that they, too, are now under suspicion for having blocked Gupta coal. And all this is done amid claims of unfair treatment and victimisation.

Leaving aside, for a moment, that we are in the grip of a power crisis that is crippling growth and handicapping the welfare of South Africans for generations to come, in what possible way can South Africa’s and Eskom’s interests be served by burning substandard coal? Who benefits from this? The Guptas, one might have thought.

We are told, routinely, that the fact that two of Zuma’s children have big jobs with Gupta firms is mere coincidence, attributable to the fact that they are uniquely suited to the posts in question.

And their favoured position has nothing to do with the fact that one of Zuma’s wives, Bongi Ngema-Zuma, works for the Guptas and that they apparently paid for her R3.8-million mansion.

From their estate in Saxonwold, Johannesburg, the Guptas cast a long shadow over business and public life in South Africa. As is clear from the convoys of luxury cars beating a trail into the Gupta compound, the family are well connected.

As they go from strength to strength and deal to deal, red tape simply cuts itself, allowing the family to amass wealth without the hindrances endured by rivals. And when the lights go out because Eskom is burning dud Gupta coal? Gloomy, of course, but for one family, at least, there is light at the end of this tunnel.