Indian businessmen Ajay and Atul Gupta. Photo: Flickr/Damanpreet Singh
Indian businessmen Ajay and Atul Gupta. Photo: Flickr/Damanpreet Singh
Cyril Ramaphosa is currently on a visit to the United Kingdom, taking a good look at the place before Brexit – in whichever form it’s delivered in – grips the country. With leaving the European Union high on Blighty’s agenda, the president may have thought he could slip one under the rug regarding the cost of state capture.
That has not proven to be the case. Although Ramaphosa told foreign investment interests that Mzansi has now “stemmed the bleeding” from state capture, he conceded that a whopping R500 billion ($34 billion) may have been stolen during Jacob Zuma’s nine-year tenure. That’s not bleeding. That’s the elevator doors opening up in The Shining.
That’s a heck of a lot of money. It’s just under half of what Zuma wanted to give the Russians in exchange for an ill-conceived nuclear power deal. So perhaps we should be… thankful? Well, that’s not going to be easy. Not when you consider we could have spent that humongous wad of cash on the following:
(All stats were provided by linked sources, Numbeo and Expatistan)
What a wonderful country this could be if we had any of the above. You laugh, but it’s the five billion kgs of cheese we’re wanting the most off that list. Their cost to this country should never be forgotten.
But could the Gupta brothers – so instrumental in orchestrating the state capture project – be the ones who pay the ultimate price? Attempts to bring the family and their business associates to justice have been rejuvenated this week, thanks to the USA’s decision to impose strict financial sanctions on the billionaires.
The net may be closing, but if anyone is slippery enough to escape a major international effort to arrest them, it’s these guys.