It should be shocking. A government minister travelling around in his official car, with bags of cash in the boot, paying for his shopping and expensive meals with notes.
Yet, we are not surprised by the revelation yesterday at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture by a bodyguard for Malusi Gigaba when he was a minister. Nor by the similar story that former Eskom and Transnet CEO Brian Molefe would have multiple meetings with the Gupta family … and also be toting bags stuffed with R200 notes.
It simply reinforces the claim that the ANC – of which both men were stalwarts – is not a political party, it is a vast criminal enterprise. That money and those visits – off the books, as the evidence had it – was the lubrication, it seems, for the sleazy relationship between many in government and the Gupta family.
The Guptas have now fled into exile, no doubt clutching billions looted from South Africa. That money – and all the money which has been stolen by various members of the ANC and their accomplices – was taken from ordinary people.
Instead of school toilets, it appears to have been spent on dinners and elegant suits for people like Malusi Gigaba.
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