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Tag: south africa corruption

  • Indian-origin Gupta brothers arrested in Dubai on corruption costs, confirms South Africa

    The South African authorities on Monday stated that regulation enforcement authorities within the UAE have arrested Rajesh Gupta and Atul Gupta of the Gupta household.

    It stays unclear why the third brother — Ajay — was not arrested.

    The Gupta brothers are accused in South Africa of utilizing their relationship with former president Jacob Zuma to revenue financially and affect senior appointments, costs that they’ve vehemently denied.

    In 2018, the Gupta household went into self-exile in Dubai after looting billions of rands from parastatal establishments in South Africa, authorities stated.

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    “The ministry of justice and correctional services confirms that it has received information from law enforcement authorities in the UAE that fugitives of justice, namely Rajesh and Atul Gupta have been arrested,” the South African Department of Justice and Correctional Services stated in an announcement on Monday.

    “Discussions between various law enforcement agencies in the UAE and South Africa on the way forward are ongoing. The South African government will continue to co-operate with the UAE,” it added.

    Interpol had issued Red Notices to the Gupta brothers, who had additionally been declared persona non gratia by the US and the UK.

    Red Notices are issued for fugitives wished for prosecution to alert regulation companies globally to arrest such individuals pending extradition.

    The household fled South Africa in 2018 when the web closed in on them as large public protests ultimately led to the ANC eradicating Zuma and appointing Cyril Ramaphosa because the Acting President.

    JUST IN: Justice division confirms that “it has received information from law enforcement authorities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that fugitives of justice, namely, Rajesh and Atul Gupta have been arrested”.@News24 pic.twitter.com/jpWmtzHCmm

    — Karyn Maughan (@karynmaughan) June 6, 2022

    Earlier, South Africa had additionally appealed to the UN to get the Guptas again to South Africa when negotiations with the UAE didn’t yield outcomes as a result of there was no extradition treaty between the 2 international locations.

    The treaty was ratified in June 2021, when South Africa instantly started the method of requesting extradition of the Guptas.

    The Guptas advised the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture in 2018 that they weren’t ready to return to South Africa to testify after numerous witnesses implicated them and Zuma in corrupt instances.

    The brothers known as the South African authorities ‘recklessly incompetent’ of their affidavit to the fee.

    Quite a lot of witnesses testified the function of the Guptas in looting large quantities and in addition influencing the appointment of Cabinet ministers throughout the nine-year tenure of Zuma because the South African president.

    South Africa’s former president Jacob Zuma. (Reuters)

    Although the arrests have been broadly welcomed, analysts cautioned that the general public shouldn’t anticipate a fast decision to the case in opposition to the Guptas, as this might even take just a few years whereas they exhaust all of the avenues out there to them to struggle their extradition.

    Wayne Duvenhage, CEO of the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse, stated their investigations had revealed that just about 15 billion rands have been looted by the Guptas earlier than they fled the nation.

    The Gupta household, initially hail from Saharanpur in India, entered South Africa by organising a shoe retailer within the early Nineteen Nineties.

    They quickly expanded to incorporate IT, media and mining firms, most of which have now been bought off or closed.

    The Bank of Baroda (BoB) additionally turned concerned within the scandal when it emerged that they’d assisted the Guptas by opening accounts for them when all South African banks stopped dealings with the household.

    BoB later shut down its South African operations, citing a worldwide cutback of operations.

  • Guptas used former president Zuma towards individuals of S Africa: Commission of Inquiry

    The newest reviews of the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture says that the Gupta brothers had used former president Jacob Zuma not solely towards the individuals of South Africa but in addition to put in their very own lackeys at key establishments.

    Central to the Guptas’ scheme of state seize was Zuma, who they should have recognized at a really early stage as someone whose character was such that they might use him towards the individuals of South Africa, his personal nation and his personal authorities to advance their very own enterprise pursuits, in keeping with the report.

    “President Zuma readily opened the doors for the Guptas to go into the State-Owned Enterprises and help themselves to the money and assets of the people of South Africa,” says the fourth a part of the report which was handed to President Cyril Ramaphosa by Commission Chairperson Chief Justice Raymond Zondo on Friday.

    The report mentioned Zuma “would do anything that the Guptas wanted him to do for them”, together with firing competent ministers and senior officers at parastatal establishments, in order that Gupta lackeys might be appointed to these positions.
    The Gupta brothers – Ajay, Atul and Tony – first arrived in South Africa from Saharanpur in India within the early 90’s as freedom dawned underneath Nelson Mandela.

    They began with a shoe retailer and quickly constructed up an enormous empire that included IT, mining and media, allegedly utilizing Zuma’s affect.

    The Guptas are at present believed to be in self-imposed exile in Dubai, with South Africa’s extradition request for them to face legal fees nonetheless pending. They have additionally been declared prohibited guests within the US and the UK.

    Zuma was ousted by his personal African National Congress barely months away from the top of his second five-year time period as president after large public outcries. He is preventing ongoing legal fees of corruption and served just some months of a 15-month jail sentence final 12 months for refusing to testify on the Commission.

    The Commission heard from many witnesses, together with ministers who had been eliminated, concerning the involvement of Zuma and the Guptas of their dismissals. “President Zuma was prepared to remove people from their positions who were very good in their jobs if the Guptas wanted those people removed or if the Guptas wanted people associated with them to be put into those positions,” the report says.

    One of the three volumes that make up this instalment of the report from the Commission, which sat for 3 years, is concerning the seize of parastatal electrical energy provider Eskom. “The evidence proves a scheme by the Guptas to capture Eskom, install the Guptas’ selected officials in strategic positions within Eskom as members of the board, the committees of the board and the executives and then divert Eskom’s assets to the Guptas’ financial advantage,” the report says.

    The report additionally discovered that former minister Lynn Brown was celebration to the state of affairs during which billions had been looted type Eskom, leaving it virtually bankrupt and unable to finance ageing infrastructure which has been inflicting common load shedding throughout the nation.

    “When one has regard to all the evidence heard by the commission, it is quite clear that the Guptas were in control of the Eskom board. The president of the country, Mr Jacob Zuma, and minister Brown were manipulating the situation at Eskom to advance the business interests of the Guptas,” it mentioned.

  • South Africa: Jacob Zuma, Gupta brothers embezzled public cash to complement now defunct media home, says report

    South Africa’s former president Jacob Zuma together with Indian-origin Gupta brothers, who had “considerable” affect over him, misappropriated enormous quantity of public cash, together with diverting tens of millions of rands to complement the now defunct The New Age newspaper, in accordance with a probe report on corruption throughout Zuma’s tenure from 2009 to 2018.
    President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday acquired the primary of the three elements of the report of the South African Commission of Inquiry into State Capture from the chairperson of the Commission, Acting Chief Justice Raymond Zondo.
    The report has been made public, nevertheless, the federal government mentioned it will likely be capable of touch upon it solely after learning all of the three elements. The remainder of the elements shall be handed over to the president by February-end.

    The first half offers with the Gupta household’s New Age newspaper, the destruction of South African Airways (SAA) by Zuma’s consigliere Dudu Myeni, the seize of the South African Revenue Service (SARS) and the corruption of the state procurement system via the tender system.
    The New Age (TNA) newspaper was began by the three Gupta brothers — Ajay, Atul and Rajesh (Tony) — who migrated to South Africa from Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur city and are actually believed to be in self-exile in Dubai as authorities search their extradition to face graft costs.
    The report mentioned the Guptas wielded nice affect over Zuma, as they set about looting billions from state enterprises earlier than fleeing the nation.
    “The evidence before the Commission paints a picture of a calculated strategy by the Guptas to appropriate public funds from state-owned enterprises,” it mentioned.
    Gupta brothers. (File picture)
    It was key to their efforts to have facilitators inside the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and authorities departments, corresponding to Government Communication Information Services (GCIS), who would be sure that the entities dedicated tens of millions of rands to the TNA regardless of there being no discernible worth for the entities or authorities departments, the report mentioned.
    “The influence they (Gupta brothers) exerted over former President Zuma was considerable. They managed to ensure that a well-performing and principled public servant was removed at lightning speed when he refused to accede to their demands to divert millions of rands of public money to enrich their media business,” it added.
    This was a reference to the resistance that the Guptas met after they tried to coerce GCIS head Themba Maseko to divert 600-million rand to TNA. Maseko was later dismissed allegedly on the instruction of Zuma.

    Underlining that Zuma changed Maseko with a facilitator, within the type of Mzwanele Manyi, the report mentioned that in Manyi’s time period as GCIS Director-General, “millions of rands were spent on TNA in circumstances where there was no credible readership information nor certified circulation figures for the newspaper”.
    “It is inconceivable that this would have been allowed to occur if Mr Maseko had remained at the helm of GCIS,” it mentioned.
    The Commission additionally discovered that senior officers, together with some board members at SOEs, had been complicit in irregular transfers of big sum of money to TNA, via contracts that had been adjusted to misrepresent the worth of the offers to watchdogs like Parliament and the Public Protector via recasting the agreements as one thing completely different to what they actually had been.
    The contracts concluded by the SOEs had been typically patently irregular and wasteful by definition as a result of their worth merely couldn’t be established, the report mentioned.
    in accordance with the Commission, the TNA investigation reveals that state seize thrived at SOEs, even if crucial legal guidelines to stop it had been in place. The Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) clearly and definitively made every of the TNA contracts illegal.
    “State capture thrived because the people given power and authority in the SOEs simply flouted its terms. One way to prevent this in the future is to ensure that those who ignored their legal obligations are held to account for their conduct,” it mentioned.
    The Commission really helpful that the position of Brian Molefe – former chair of nationwide rail transport supplier Transnet and Collin Matjila and former chairperson of nationwide electrical energy provider Eskom – be investigated within the misrepresentation of contracts with TNA by the National Prosecuting Authority, with a view to costs of fraud and/or contravention of the PFMA.

    The Commission additionally really helpful that the legislation enforcement companies ought to examine a doable case of corruption in opposition to Tony Gupta, on the idea of the testimony of former Acting Chair of the state-run South African Airways Board – Vuyisile Kona.
    Kona had informed the Commission that Tony had initially provided him R100,000 and later R500,000 in October 2012. After he refused to simply accept the bribe, Kona was fired from his job.