It was not exciting to watch former high-flying Transnet bosses such as Brian Molefe, Anoj Singh and several other state capture enablers appear in court this week in deeply forlorn conditions. People could be excused for almost feeling sorry for them.
They looked deeply troubled. How sad that they resembled sorry figures as they silently lined up across the dock and hardly talking to each other. It was as if they did not know each other.
Some of them, like Molefe and Siyabonga Gama, were once pioneering black bureaucrats who appeared destined to reach for the skies before they were consumed by the temptations of the
immediate wealth that came with collaborating with the Gupta-led state capture project.
The state capture project, which had the blessing of Jacob Zuma – perhaps the most corrupt post-apartheid president – seems to have largely benefited the Gupta brothers than its enablers such as Zuma and some of his acolytes in government and state-owned enterprises, which
became the main Guptas’ feeding trough.
We must stress that Molefe and others remain innocent until proven guilty. But it pains us to see them appearing in court like troops who have been used and abandoned like cannon fodder by their generals.
It is not a pleasant sight to witness them being hauled before the courts while the masterminds remain free.
As the Transnet prosecutions were unfolding in court this week, Justice Minister Ronald Lamola was at pains trying to convince MPs that the chief state capture architects, Rajesh and Atul Gupta, will be brought back to South Africa to face the music.
The two Gupta brothers are said to be still behind bars in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after their arrest almost four months ago.
Although Lamola sought to reassure MPs that the extradition process of these two state capture kingpins is well underway, the process does not inspire confidence.
It is too shrouded in secrecy. While the two countries – South Africa and the UAE – are said to be co-operating and in constant engagement, Dubai must show more determination to convince South Africans that the Guptas will be handed over.
We would have thought the extradition process was going to commence soon after their arrest, but it has yet to commence, if it ever will. Neither South Africa nor UAE has favoured us with any information about why the extradition proceedings have not yet started.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is currently in the Middle East on a state visit in Saudi Arabia, might as well also use the opportunity to make a stop in the UAE and try to convince his counterparts to expedite the extradition of the Guptas.
It is a crying shame that state capture enablers are on their own while it is not known whether their masters will ever have their day in court. The sad chapter of state capture with its accompanying economic and political pain will never be closed until the Guptas have their day in South African courts of law.
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