Three years and 10 months, 278 witnesses, 159 109 pages of evidence, and a cost of R1 billion.
That’s what went into the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture, aka the Zondo commission.
What cannot be quantified, however, is the amount of faith, trust and hope that South Africans invested in the project which was handed the mandate of investigating corruption at the 21 major state-owned entities.
The commission sought to identify those who enabled and benefited from state capture, including members of the national executive and former president Jacob Zuma himself.
South Africans sat and watched exhaustive hearings which alleged serious irregularities at entities including the Vrede Dairy Project, MultiChoice, the EOH Group, McKinsey & Company and Bain & Company.
We heard about maladministration at Transnet, Eskom, Denel, the SABC, SAA, SAPS, the National Prosecuting Authority, the SA Revenue Service, the State Security Agency and the City of Joburg.
But ultimately, firmly in the crosshairs of the commission was public enemy number one: the Gupta family, who are widely believed to have been the biggest culprits and beneficiaries of the corruption that has systematically eroded the country’s SOEs.
It was therefore a fatal blow to this project – and President Cyril President's promise to root out corruption and recover R14.7 billion in “stolen” taxpayer's money – when it emerged that the Gupta brothers have got off scot-free.
Last week, the Justice Department revealed that their counterparts in the United Arab Emirates, where the Guptas had been arrested last June, had informed them that the extradition application had failed – for reasons as yet unclear.
The brothers have presumably skipped that country and, from what can be gleaned from the communication, are now citizens of the tropical Pacific island paradise of Vanuatu.
It’s a “happily ever after” that effectively renders the commission a failure – let down by justice officials who ought to now be the subject of a separate commission of inquiry for their handling of the extradition fiasco.
But, more than that, it is a sickening blow to the hopes and dreams for a just and fair South Africa.
* Taariq Halim, Editor of the Cape Argus newspaper.
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