Prelude to a case of state capture by the Brothers Gupta
In a detailed and eye-opening Bloomberg feature, the story of the Guptas and their dealings with corrupt government officials is a dark tale
Atul Gupta handed KPMG partners a confidential letter that Glencore had sent to Eskom and asked them to draft a response for then Eskom CEO Brian Molefe to sign, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. In a detailed feature, giving all the background about the state-capture scandal, light is shed on why KPMG dropped JSE-listed Oakbay and other companies associated with the Guptas as clients. In September 2015 — a few months before Glencore sold Optimum colliery to the Gupta family’s Tegeta — “Gupta asked KPMG to draft a response for Molefe’s signature, making it clear the utility would never make peace with Glencore”. An anonymous source who was present at the meeting told Bloomberg that the KPMG partners refused to draft the letter, but they also failed to alert their superiors or any government agency to the underlying activity. “Atul’s possession of the internal Eskom letter should have been enough to sever the relationship — it was like an atom bomb,” the anonymous KPMG insider told Blo...
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