South Africa's Chief Justice has said the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party, and the government it controls, "should be ashamed" of the state capture system of corruption that had happened "under their watch".
In the fourth hefty report on his three-year-long oversight of the formal inquiry into 'state capture', wherein private sector interests had direct control of and much benefit from state-owned entities and funds, Justice Raymond Zondo pulls no punches.
ANC shouldered blame for allowing the rampant and organised looting of public money and weakening of major state entities and institutions that cost South Africa an estimated $100 billion.
With a final report due in six weeks' time, Zondo's fourth account, running to four volumes, covers the ground that started his commission's life – the 'capture' of entities like Eskom, Africa's largest electricity producer, and the theft of funds meant to improve the lives of the poorest citizens.
Chief Justice Zondo said the ANC should be "ashamed" of the way it relinquished power over important parts of South Africa's economy to a private family, the notorious 'Gupta brothers', who fled the country and are being sought.
According to Zondo's summary, by as early as mid-2015, Eskom was under the direct control of the Gupta family.
"South Africans thought that the ANC government was in control of Eskom, but it was not," says Zondo in the report, which was formally handed over to President Cyril Ramaphosa late last week.
"It (the ANC government) had relinquished the control to the Guptas and those people the Guptas wanted," adds Zondo.
"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 (state-owned enterprises) such as (rail carrier) Transnet, Eskom and (arms manufacturer) Denel? Where were they? What were they doing?"
The report damns the ruling party directly, along with several of its leaders who are named. Chief among them is former president Jacob Zuma, who last year went to jail for contempt for refusing to appear for questioning before Zondo.
Several former and some current ANC figures and cabinet ministers are also named, most close associates of Zuma in an ongoing factional struggle within the ANC for control of the party.
Zondo recommends that most of them be prosecuted – a specialised prosecution unit having been set up recently to ensure that such recommendations are followed through.
Among those named and implicated is chief Zuma ally, suspended ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule. Zondo found him to have been involved in a sham multibillion-dollar asbestos-replacement programme in the Free State province, of which Magashule was then premier.
Zondo has recommended prosecutions of the former CEO and two chief financial officers of the former Eskom board from 2014, when about $1 billion in contracts were improperly awarded, mainly to the Gupta family.
The fourth report from Zondo is rich in detail and runs to 1,066 pages, covering several themes, including an effort to capture the National Treasury.
In brief, Zondo found that Zuma aided the Gupta family in 'capturing' power utility Eskom.
In turn, the Gupta family orchestrated the suspensions of Eskom's top leadership in 2015, so that their "associates" could be placed in strategic positions at the utility.
An attempted housing upgrade for those living under roofs and within walls made of highly toxic cancer-causing asbestos sheeting in the Free State province was described by Zondo as a "dismal failure – a debacle!"
The scheme, worth about $65 million, should have delivered houses to the poorest of the poor in that province during Magashule's premiership. But almost no work was done, except to redistribute the funds to "struggling" ANC figures, including the current deputy state security minister.
The effective hijacking of Eskom for private profit takes up the largest portion of the report, focusing on who received what illicit funds and kickbacks.
In response, Eskom, now with an entirely new board, has immediately set up a project team to tackle Zondo's recommendations.
The team, which Eskom says is "supported by its internal and external lawyers", will review the report and take "appropriate" action.
The debt-laden utility has been attempting to recover funds lost during the state capture era, including over $250 million in damages it suffered due to the unlawful actions of those implicated in the looting, it said.
In particularly damaging findings, Zondo said the ANC and senior figures in it, including its former treasurer, had illicitly received millions of dollars in 'donations' from corrupt players for and on behalf of the ANC itself.
When he appeared as the last witness before Zondo, Ramaphosa admitted that the ANC, including its leaders like himself, had been to blame for allowing state capture to develop into a systemically corrupt scheme.
Zondo has agreed with that assessment – though the blame, while owned by Ramaphosa, rests overwhelmingly with his predecessor Zuma, said Zondo.
South Africans, enduring yet more power outages this week that are likely to run into next, have hardly reacted to Zondo's politically damning findings, regarding them as "more of the same" and "no surprise".
For the ANC under Ramaphosa, the findings come as yet another blow to its former prestige as the "party of Nelson Mandela, the party of liberation".
For Ramaphosa, this latest report helps his efforts to "clean up" both his party and the government it runs.
But it is also a headache. He or at least the prosecuting authorities must now act within a reasonable period against the named persons. There is also the problem of dealing with tainted senior ruling party figures.
And those fighting to 'bring Zuma back' show no signs of backing down, with a former mayor of Durban, now facing charges of corruption, and an ANC regional figure facing charges of murder elected recently into provincial leadership positions in the party.
Efforts by Ramaphosa and his allies to "bring the party into line" have been bearing fruit, but the Zuma-aligned 'fight-back' continues. The campaign has intensified with the growing realisation that it is not only Zuma and a few others who face possible jail time but also many others in the ruling party and senior government circles.
A senior veteran ANC member told the Nation on the condition of anonymity: "We have an elective conference in December and a policy conference around the end of June or early July. In both there will be a fight. One faction, (Zuma's) has little to lose by engaging in open battle for control of the party.
"The other (Ramaphosa's) has the upper hand, and likely the most branch and provincial delegate votes, but is dealing with desperate people who are doing absolutely everything in their power to remain in power, or return to power, and to oust Cyril in order to avoid losing jobs, positions and their freedom.
"It is, in every sense, a fight to the finish.”
