The infamous Estina Vrede Dairy Project was supposed to direct public funds to ‘empower’ indigent Free State farmers and develop local agriculture. Instead, almost all of the money was looted to benefit the Gupta enterprise. This week Open Secrets focuses on two of the banks that facilitated this injustice. As shown in The Enablers Investigative…
Naushina Rahim | News24 | 18 March 2020 The reality of the modern globalised and financialised world is that corruption on a grand scale, along with organised crime and state capture, is enabled by skilled professionals, including bankers, lawyers, accountants and consultants writes Naushina Rahim ‘An Agenda for Action’ was submitted almost a month ago…
Hennie van Vuuren | Financial Mail | 12 March 2020 Last week, lawyer Robert Appelbaum floated the idea of an amnesty for perpetrators of state capture. It’s a short-sighted idea, designed to appease the powerful and corrupt, says Open Secrets’ Hennie van Vuuren In the home of Joburg-based corporate lawyer Robert Appelbaum hangs a portrait…
If Transnet was a golden goose for the Gupta family and their associates, then global banking giant HSBC played the role of tending their illicit nest eggs. This week Open Secrets examines the role of a key global enabler in the State Capture network. As shown in The Enablers investigative report, it takes more than…
‘The Enablers: The Bankers, Accountants and Lawyers who Facilitated State Capture’ is an investigative report published by Open Secrets and Shadow World Investigations in February 2020. The report focuses on the role of banks, accounting firms, consultants and lawyers in facilitating criminal conduct that formed part of the state capture enterprise. This investigative report shows…
Estelle Ellis | Daily Maverick | 3 March 2020 The Supreme Court of Appeal on Tuesday heard the appeal by the SA History Archive Trust against a ruling that will allow the SA Reserve Bank to keep records of significant fraud, corruption and gold smuggling under the apartheid government a secret. In the latest chapter…
We, the undersigned organisations and individuals committed to justice for historical crimes and social justice in South Africa write in support of the South African History Archive. On Tuesday 03 March 2020 it faces the next round in an epic battle against the South African Reserve Bank in the Bloemfontein Supreme Court of Appeal. This…
Ilham Rahoot |Mail & Guardian | 21 February 2020 | The floor has been reopened. The past two weeks’ furore over FW de Klerk’s denial and hasty withdrawal of his statement that “the system of apartheid is not a crime against humanity”, as well as the inquest into activist Neil Aggett’s murder in prison, have…
Morning Live | SABC | 21 February 2020 | More than 20 civil society groups from across the country have joined forces and created “The Civil Society Working Group” which submitted recommendations on State Capture to the Zondo Commission. The recommendations are based on how to reform the state and the private sector in the…
Cape Talk | 20 February 2020 | Listening to the testimony of bankers before the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into allegations of state capture, you might believe they were unwitting victims of the Guptas and acted quickly and virtuously to throttle their corrupt ways by closing their bank accounts in 2016. It turns out they…
