South African President Jacob Zuma attends the Dialogue of Emerging
Market and Developing Countries on the sidelines of the 2017 BRICS
Summit in Xiamen, southeastern China's Fujian Province on September 5,
2017. PHOTO | WU HONG | AFP
South Africa’s
President Jacob Zuma and his ex-wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma are being
investigated by both the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the UK’s
Serious Fraud Office for allegedly looting billions of dollars from
public coffers.
Ms Dlamini-Zuma is one of the front-runners in the succession of Zuma as the leader of the governing party — African National Congress (ANC) — and as the president.
The
FBI and UK criminal investigators are looking into Mr Zuma and
Dlamini-Zuma’s alleged participation in an international crime syndicate
and associated transnational money laundering schemes.
This
comes on the back of revelations in South Africa of widespread
corruption and the ‘‘capture’’ of State-owned enterprises by parties
closely connected with Mr Zuma, his family and a wealthy Indian
immigrant family — the Guptas.
GUPTA FAMILY
The
so-called “state capture” and its implications have gripped the
country’s political scene over the last one year as more details have
emerged, culminating in the leak of thousands of emails implicating Mr
Zuma, his family members as well the Gupta family in a range of illicit
transactions and dubious practices.
Consequently,
President Zuma has faced votes of no confidence this year from both his
colleagues in the ruling ANC and in Parliament, but he has so far
survived.
Mr Zuma has used
appeals in courts to avoid having to put in place a commission of
inquiry as ordered by the constitutionally-empowered public watchdog
office of the Public Protector.
But
last week, he had to recant his opposition to the commission in yet
another High Court action undertaken by his political opponents, mainly
the Democratic Alliance, with the matter likely to be ruled on as early
as next week.
INDICTMENT
No
matter who President Zuma appoints to look into “state capture” or the
terms of reference for the commission he will have to appoint, they are
not likely to help him avoid indictment on more corruption charges
beyond the 783 which a High Court has already ordered to be reinstated.
The
North Gauteng High Court heard this week in Zuma’s latest appeal to
avoid a proper and credible investigation of “state capture” that he is
profoundly implicated, just as the Public Protector report of last year
into “state capture” found.
Regardless of what now
happens in his county, Mr Zuma faces a joint FBI and UK Serious Fraud
Office investigation. European Union investigators might be included in
the probe.
The investigation was called for by South
African-born anti-apartheid activist Lord Peter Hain in a letter
recently written to the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond.
LEAKED EMAILS
The Nation
has a copy of that letter in which 11 members of the extended Gupta
clan are named, some living in the US. Others included in the letter are
Mr Zuma himself, Ms Dlamini-Zuma, four of Zuma’s children, two of Mr
Zuma’s four current wives, a nephew and a brother, along with several
other parties with known links to either the Zumas or the Guptas.
Additionally,
the letter cites 14 companies registered either in SA or abroad, some
of which have been named by the Public Protector in her report, with the
roles of some others having emerged as a result of the leaked emails.
The
emails outline in detail exactly how “state capture” has worked to
illegally redirect public funds to private accounts or to those of
companies linked either to the Guptas or to the Zumas.
Mr
Hain also called on EU authorities to investigate the illegal money
flows involved in funds looted from public coffers in SA and laundered
through Dubai and Hong Kong to receiving parties in the US (mainly
Gupta-owned businesses), hence the involvement of the FBI, and other
foreign countries.
KICKBACKS
One
EU country involved is Germany, home to software company SAP which this
week was reported by SA media as allegedly having admitted to US
investigators of having paid kickbacks for landing $100 million
contracts for State-owned enterprises — Transnet and Eskom — the
national railway operator and power producer respectively.
The
leaked emails also show that President Zuma has had a multi-million
dollar property bought for him by the Guptas in Dubai, presumably to act
as his safe bolt-hole in case things turn ugly for him in SA once he
exits from the presidency.
While SA and the US have no extradition treaties with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the UK does.
The
involvement of UK authorities means that Zuma and members of his family
now have virtually nowhere left in the world to which they may flee.
SA’s
prosecuting authorities widely considered to have been also “captured”
along with major state-owned enterprises by “Zuma and friends”, have yet
to act on any aspect of “state capture”, despite overwhelming prima facie
evidence that the phenomenon is real, and does indeed involve President
Zuma, his family members, the Guptas and their associates.
CONSPIRACY
Lord
Hain recently visited SA to ascertain for himself the extent of “state
capture” and the far-flung international reaches of the criminal
conspiracy behind it.
“Based on
my knowledge, the majority of the illicit funds have flowed through the
UAE and Hong Kong. In both these jurisdictions, two of the UK’s largest
financial institutions — Standard Chartered and HSBC — have their
footprints,” said Lord Hain in his letter to the UK’s Chancellor of the
Exchequer.
SA was, said Lord
Hain in the letter, “gripped by a political, economic and social crisis,
precipitated by the vast criminal network facilitated by an
Indian-South African family, the Guptas, and the presidential family,
the Zumas”.
“Such is the extent
of this criminal network that the South African state is indisputably
regarded as having been ‘captured’, with corruption and cronyism
plundering taxpayer resources on an industrial scale,” said Lord Hain.
CRIMINAL NETWORK
He
added: “I have deep concerns and questions around the complicity,
whether witting or unwitting, of UK global financial institutions in the
Gupta/Zuma transnational criminal network.”
The
implications of this latest development in the unfolding saga of how Mr
Zuma has apparently organised or allowed the wholesale and blatant
plundering of the SA public purse, in conjunction with his “friends”, as
he calls them, are far-reaching, not merely for Mr Zuma and SA’s
political scene but for all leaders, current and past.
On
the political front, Ms Dlamini-Zuma’s faltering bid to succeed her
ex-husband has been seriously weakened in favour of ANC and SA Deputy
President Cyril Ramaphosa, as her alleged role in what appears to be
“extended state capture” has been aired.
And
there is now the very real prospect of an African head of State facing
major national and international corruption investigations, which are
likely to lead to indictment and potential lengthy jail time, if not in
SA, then in the UK or US.
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