THICK END OF THE WEDGE
How the Guptas ascended Jacob’s ladder
If you had to choose, what would you rather know: that the Gupta family businesses had been involved in more than R6bn worth of transactions that big banks in SA have reported to the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC), or that Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Des van Rooyen dined with the Guptas at their Johannesburg home the night before President Jacob Zuma fired then finance minister Nhlanhla Nene last December 9 and appointed (briefly) Van Rooyen in his place? For me, the latter wins hands down. The deposition that Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan made in the High Court in Pretoria last Friday, seeking a declaratory order that he cannot be expected to intervene in the row between the Guptas and the banks that have closed their accounts may be sexy, but it isn’t, I think, decisive in the state capture affair. Yes, it will be fascinating to hear the Guptas explain the 70 or so transactions Gordhan listed. But if they are laundering money, is it theirs or ar...
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