Southn Africa: Net closes on fugitive Gupta family
Cape Town, South Africa (PANA) – South African authorities on Thursday confirmed that they have issued mutual legal assistance requests to eight countries around the world to help snare the fugitive Gupta family.
At the same time, the United States has announced that it has imposed sanctions on the controversial Gupta brothers - Ajay, Atul and Rajesh - who are at the centre of the South Africa’s state capture scandal which saw the government fleeced of hundreds of millions of dollars during President Jacob Zuma’s presidency.
Zuma has been directly implicated in the saga along with his son, Duduzane, who was employed by the three brothers who arrived in South Africa in the early 1990s. They have all fled and are now believed to be living in Dubai.
The United States Department of Treasury said it has “sanctioned members of a significant corruption network in South Africa that leveraged overpayments on government contracts, bribery, and other corrupt acts to fund political contributions and influence government actions”.
It further said the move demonstrates Washington’s “unwavering commitment to supporting the rule of law and accountability in South Africa".
"We support the anti-corruption efforts of South Africa’s independent judiciary, law enforcement agencies, and the ongoing judicial commissions of inquiry. Moreover, we commend the extraordinary work by South Africa’s civil society activists, investigative journalists, and whistle-blowers, who have exposed the breadth and depth of the Gupta family’s corruption," the department said in a statement.
Transparency International recently ranked the Gupta state capture scandal as the 15th biggest corruption scandal in the world over the past 25 years.
In another high-profile matter, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) will Friday rule on former Jacob Zuma’s application for a permanent stay of prosecution in his arms deal corruption case. It involves 783 questionable payments Zuma allegedly received from the company in connection with the deal which saw the South African military purchasing jet fighters, ships and submarines.
-0- PANA CU/VAO 10Oct2019
