The Guptas must be smiling all the way to their cash vaults. The £100,000 monthly retainer they paid disgraced public relations firm Bell Pottinger for two years to besmirch SA may well have been the best investment they made — ranking right up there with capturing a head of state. This polarising, evil and racist campaign was a decoy to draw the nation’s attention away from the looting frenzy. It succeeded beyond their wildest imagination.

Bell Pottinger is gone, but its noxious influence will remain for years — worsened by the poverty wrought by the declining economy and the bankruptcy of ideas of those in charge of the government...

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