And so, what next? This is the question many people are asking after Chief Justice Raymond Zondo this week again laid bare everything South Africans ought to know about how their country was brazenly looted and almost pushed to the brink of economic ruin by a band of political scoundrels led by one Jacob Zuma – the former president.
If anything, the latest instalment of Zondo’s state capture report illustrates not only the wilful destruction of the organs of state for monetary gain but an audacious hijacking of the entire South African democratic project.
What hurts most about the state capture project is the extent of collaboration between politicians and their puppets in attempting to voluntarily surrender the soul of this country to foreign nationals whose intentions were the complete takeover of our economy. This is a betrayal of the highest order.
Nobody describes this betrayal better than Zondo when he says in his report: “Central to the Guptas’s scheme of state capture was president Zuma, who the Guptas must have identified at a very early stage as somebody whose character was such that they could use him against the people of South Africa, his own country and his own government to advance their own business interests and president Zuma readily opened the doors for the Guptas to go into the SOEs [state-owned enterprises] and help themselves to the money and assets of the people of South Africa.”
Zondo becomes more poignant as he decries this state of destruction. “South Africans thought that the ANC government was in control of Eskom but it was not. It had relinquished the control to the Guptas and those people the Guptas wanted.
“The ANC and the ANC government should be ashamed that this happened under their watch. The question that the people of South Africa are entitled to ask is: Where was the ANC as the Guptas took control of important SOEs such as Transnet, Eskom, and Denel? Where were they? What were they doing?”
This is a serious indictment on the man and his fellow narcissists in the ANC who describe themselves as champions of the so-called radical economic transformation.
It is even more appalling that they continue to show South Africans the middle finger and pretend to be innocent victims of a political witch-hunt, instead of owning up to their shameful deeds. What is more distressing is how they walk the streets as free men, addressing press conferences and using social media to spread all sorts of fake news as they try to divert attention from their economic crimes.
They become more brazen as they try to fight for political office, which they believe could be the only route to escape the consequences of the pain they inflicted on the economy. They seem to be so self-assured because the wheels of justice turn slowly in this country.
We have yet to see any significant prosecutions of state capture crimes despite the tonnes of evidence that has been presented to the commission.
The National Prosecuting Authority must perhaps begin to prepare special courts dedicated to state capture crimes if we are to be convinced that Zondo’s recommendations are going to be acted on.
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