Zuma was ousted by his own party just months after the end of his second five-year term as president.
Johannesburg:
The latest reports from the commission of inquiry into the coup say the Gupta brothers had used former President Jacob Zuma not only against the people of South Africa, but also to install their own lackeys at key institutions.
Central to the Gupta’s coup plan was Zuma, whom they must have identified at a very early stage as someone whose character was such that they could use him against the people of South Africa, his own country and his own government to reach the goal. own business interests, according to the report.
“President Zuma easily opened the doors for the Guptas to enter the state-owned enterprises and help themselves to the money and assets of the people of South Africa,” says the fourth part of the report submitted by the Commission to President Cyril Ramaphosa. was handed over. Chairman Chief Justice Raymond Zondo on Friday.
The report said Zuma would “do everything the Guptas wanted him to do for them,” including firing competent ministers and senior officials at parastatal institutions so that Gupta gaps in those positions could be appointed.
The Gupta brothers – Ajay, Atul and Tony – first arrived in South Africa from India’s Saharanpur in the early 1990s when freedom dawned under Nelson Mandela.
They started with a shoe store and quickly built a huge empire in IT, mining and media, allegedly leveraging Zuma’s influence.
The Guptas are currently believed to be in self-imposed exile in Dubai, with South Africa’s extradition request to face criminal charges. They have also been declared off-limits in the US and UK.
Zuma was impeached by his own African National Congress just months before the end of his second five-year term as president, following massive public protests. He is fighting the ongoing criminal charges for corruption and last year only served a few months of a 15-month prison sentence for refusing to testify before the Commission.
The Commission heard from many witnesses, including ministers who had been deposed, about the involvement of Zuma and the Guptas in their dismissals.
“President Zuma was willing to remove people who were very good at their jobs from their positions if the Guptas wanted those people removed or if the Guptas wanted people associated with them to be placed in those positions,” the report said.
One of the three parts of this part of the Commission’s report, which has been in place for three years, deals with the capture of parastatal electricity supplier Eskom.
“The evidence proves a plan by the Guptas to capture Eskom, install the officers selected by the Guptas in strategic positions within Eskom as members of the board of directors, the committees of the board and executives, and then the assets van Eskom to the Guptas’ financial advantage,” the report says.
The report also found that former Secretary of State Lynn Brown was complicit in the situation in which billions were looted from Eskom, nearly bankrupting it and unable to finance the aging infrastructure that regularly led to tax shedding across the country.
“If you look at all the evidence heard by the commission, it’s pretty clear that the Guptas were in charge of the administration of Eskom. The country’s president, Mr. Jacob Zuma, and Secretary Brown manipulated the situation in Eskom to advance the business interests of the Guptas,” it said.
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