In 2011, a former state official announced that an investigation into the Gupta family was necessary since their influence in the political arena would eventually be detrimental to the country. Since coming to the country in the late 90’s, the family have managed to dip their fingers into every economic-sector pie, from mining to media, finance, IT and travel.

In fact, in 2013 Mail & Guardian did a piece introducing South Africans to the whole family and their stakes. Even 2oceansvibe has extensively covered the family’s shady doings.

But no one really took it seriously. Until now.

Fast forward five years and, following Jacob Zuma’s pathetic attempt to lead the country, we have ended up with a harsh reality. The record-breaking economic downfall that occurred at the end of last year finally had people worried – and not only resulted in people speaking out about their concerns, but actually reading more about the state of the corruption that is going on. Zuma must be hating himself, since the firing of Nene only led to his own political downfall.

It’s been a good run though – the two families met back in the early 2000’s, but ill actions can only last so long.

The silent resignations within the ANC that are going on are the silent signs of corruption that the the media is picking up more frequently, paired with the headline “BREAKING NEWS”. Before, it was only the long-winded political analysts that had anything to say about them.

Now, everything is falling into place. Here’s a quick history of suspicion of the Gupta’s from the Financial Times:

A former senior state official confirmed that, in 2011, the country’s three chiefs of intelligence agreed that the family should be investigated as reports of their influence surfaced. But the security ministry quashed the idea within 24 hours, the person says. “If there’s state capture, it goes to the heart of national security,” the former official says. All three intelligence chiefs later resigned.

Two years on from those events the intelligence bosses’ fears seemed to be borne out when a chartered aircraft carrying passengers from India to a Gupta family wedding landed at Waterkloof Air Force base in April 2013, prompting a national scandal and raising the profile of the family. A government inquiry later said the affair was deemed a “national security incident”, as the air base was exclusively for the use of military flights and heads of state.

It concluded that the “activities of some of the persons involved were driven by the undesirable practice of undue influence and abuse of higher office”.

It reported that officials invoked the president’s name, either directly or referring to “Number One”, as pressure was applied for the aircraft to be allowed to use the air base.

A meeting of senior ANC officials in January said the party needed to “deal decisively with the threat of state capture”, a phenomenon where state contracts are divvied up among a cabal of politicians and businessmen.

Zweli Mkhize, a senior ANC official, says the message was not aimed at one group or individual, but rather as a warning to “elected leaders to be conscious not to succumb to any demands from any interest groups. I wouldn’t personalise it on the Guptas, I would say it’s general,” he says.

Meanwhile, as many have insisted that the Gupta’s had an influence in the firing of Nene, the family denies it:

Mr Gupta dismisses local media reports suggesting he had links to the mining minister or any influence in Mr Van Rooyen’s four-day stint as finance minister. “Maybe I saw him at one or two places, but I don’t have any relationship at all,” Mr Gupta says of Mr Van Rooyen.

The family also denied a claim, made to the FT, that weeks before Mr Van Rooyen’s appointment they had asked Mcebisi Jonas, deputy finance minister, if he was interested in the Treasury’s top post at a meeting at the Gupta home.

“There have been an extraordinary number of allegations around the Gupta family in recent weeks, several of which have involved the finance ministry,” a family spokesman says. “To be absolutely clear: there was no meeting at all.”

The Treasury and Mr Jonas declined to comment, neither denying nor confirming the existence of the meeting.

The man who served as Zuma’s deputy from 2009 to 2014 – Kgalema Motlanthe, says that although the ANC needs to put its foot down, what will follow will be the uprooting of many rotten roots:

Once you start on that path there’s no turning back, it’s a rot that can only be rooted out the Fifa way.

If it [the ANC] is itself in a bad shape, or weak, then there are no checks and balances. That’s how one thing just leads to another and before you know it there’s a total culture of patronage and corruption. Depending on where you stand and how you view the . . . gravity of the situation, then I would say we are drifting in that direction, pretty rapidly.

While every sector of our political sphere has been corrupted by the hands of Zuma, it is going to take some strong backbones within the party and influential sectors of the state to make a change that will last. First, we need to get rid of the man at the top – but not before all allegations of corruption are under control.

[source: ft]