Jacques Pauw might have exposed much of the ‘Zuma and Friends’ underbelly looting South Africa at every opportunity, but there’s always more dirt to dish.

Seth’s favourite, the Financial Times, was on top form over the weekend, running a double page spread titled “The Selling Of South Africa”.

I reckon we can dive straight into this one without much further ado, so here’s a particularly juicy passage:

So close have Ajay, Atul and Rajesh “Tony” Gupta become to Jacob Zuma, the controversial president, that South Africans have coined a term — “the Zuptas” — to describe their symbiotic bond. The tangle of corruption and political skulduggery will be at the heart of the five-yearly conference of the African National Congress next month, when the future leadership of the ruling party and, thus, the direction of the entire nation will be decided…

State capture goes beyond simple corruption. It involves the systematic ransacking of institutions, so that the nation’s laws and regulations, as well as the people in positions of power, work for the financial benefit of groups or individuals. “The singular aim of state capture,” says Lawson Naidoo, executive secretary of the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution, “is to facilitate the plunder of state resources for the benefit of politically connected individuals and their corporate vehicles”. It amounts, he says, to “institutional vandalism on a massive scale”.

How one immigrant family managed in effect to “capture” a country might be considered an overblown work of fiction — if it did not happen to be broadly substantiated. So familiar to South Africans are many elements of the story that the term “state capture”, once confined to academic studies of the former Soviet Union, is now the stuff of tabloid headlines and barroom chat. The Guptas themselves are a household name. “Everyone,” says the security guard at Vrede, “knows the Guptas”.

I’ll stop there, because you have people to see and things to do, but you can find the rest of that story in PDF form HERE.

Do a little zooming and voila, you’re in.

We should probably take this chance to remind you that the FT Weekend requires a subscription – even the online version:

Of course there’s something special about cracking open the paper on a Sunday, putting your feet up and getting stuck in. We’ve heard Seth go on about it before HERE, so you get the drift.

We want the best for you, friends, so we’ve hooked up a special 2ov discount for readers, you see.

SPECIAL OFFER

• 12 Month Subscription
  R3 150
  50 copies @ R63,00 (30% discount off subscription cover price of R90,00)
• 6 Month subscription
  R1575,00
  25 copies @ R63,00 (30% discount off subscription cover price of R90,00)

Spicy – so how do you get in on the goodness?

Email Bradlee Louw (sorry Brad) at louwb@timesmedia.co.za, with the subject “Hook me up with 2oceansvibe’s FT Weekend special”, and he will do the rest.

Then you can look forward to a quality paper, delivered to your door, every weekend. Regale your friends with your extensive knowledge on the pressing matters of the day, or keep your family at bay with a double page spread strategically opened from across the lounge.

Up to you.