Indian businessmen Ajay and Atul Gupta. Photo: Flickr/Damanpreet Singh
State Capture: SA lost R49 billion to dodgy Gupta-linked deals
The State Capture Commission has heard details of how monies flowed from government entities to companies linked to the Gupta family
Indian businessmen Ajay and Atul Gupta. Photo: Flickr/Damanpreet Singh
More than R49 billion of South African taxpayers’ money was spent by the State towards contracts which were found to have been unduly awarded and have other corrupt elements. Paul Edward Holden, the director of Shadow World Investigations appeared before the State Capture Commission on Monday, 24 May 2021.
Holden gave details on the flows of monies from various government departments to, in most cases, companies with links to the Gupta family. According to Holden’s findings, the exact figure of how much state capture has cost South Africa is R49 157 323 233.68.
Appearing from London virtually, much of Holden’s testimony was based on thousands of bank statements which paint a scary picture of what transpired during former president Jacob Zuma’s tenure and more specifically – to what extent the Gupta family allegedly looted government resources and funds.
The extent of Gupta family corruption in SA
Holden plans to give evidence to the State Capture Commission which would tell exactly how much the Gupta family pocketed from irregularly awarded state contracts – as well as those who received kickbacks due to their questionable links to them.
“The operation of a complex local laundromat that received funds from state capture and dissipated it onwards, usually abroad into enormous and complex international money laundering operations based in Honk Kong, China and Dubai,” he told the commission.
“The operation as far as can be established – of vast international money laundering operations – were used by Gupta enterprise alongside many other criminal actors to receive and dissipate criminally derived funds”
According to Holden, the Gupta family’s looting of the Estina dairy contract began at least a year before the actual project got underway.
”Estina was effectively being used as a front for money laundering by the Gupta enterprise a full year before the initiation of the dairy project,” he had told the commission previously.
Approximately R250 million meant to go towards an empowerment project for emerging black farmers in the Free State, was instead funnelled into a number of Gupta-linked accounts.
