Last year, then ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe dismissed attempts to use "white monopoly capital" to deflect attention from allegations of state capture by the Gupta family. Fast forward a little over a year, and Mantashe and the ANC have been plunged into the middle of the state capture saga, with the country’s big four banks telling the Zondo commission of inquiry how they were summoned to ANC headquarters at Luthuli House to explain themselves after they closed the Guptas’ bank accounts in 2016. The question they say they were asked was whether they were colluding with white monopoly capital to oppress black-owned businesses. Ironically, it now seems the meetings between the banks and the governing party were initiated by Mantashe and the then head of the ANC’s economic transformation subcommittee, Enoch Godongwana — two men who went on to position themselves on the "right" side, backing President Cyril Ramaphosa and his project to clean up the state after more than a decad...

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