Scorpio

EDITORIAL

The #GuptaLeaks, five years later

The #GuptaLeaks, five years later
Ajay Gupta and brother Atul Gupta on 2 March 2011. (Photo: Martin Rhodes)

Let’s just imagine what would have happened if the #GuptaLeaks never happened. That alternate history would have also been the end of South African history. We are truly proud of this contribution.

South Africa went through a period of extraordinary upheaval in 2017. Perhaps the most tumultuous period in this mess that was looking to find ways of self-resolving was the last week of March and the first of April. 

At the end of March, Ahmed Kathrada died. The unimpeachable stalwart of the ANC we once knew, the man who was our remaining direct link to Mandela, he expressly forbade President Jacob Zuma, head of the beloved party he dedicated his life to, from his funeral.

Editorial: How does it feel, President Zuma?

At around the same time, Pravin Gordhan and Mcebisi Jonas were fired as minister and deputy minister of finance. Zuma brought in his henchmen Malusi Gigaba and Sfiso Buthelezi to run the Treasury. 

Ajay, Atul and Rajesh Gupta were smacking their lips.

The protests spilt on to the streets. In Johannesburg and Cape Town, celebrations of Kathrada’s extraordinary life and humanity became open protests against the plutocratic regime.

At the end of that second momentous week, we got our hands on the hundreds of thousands of Gupta family emails. South Africa was about to make a course correction. 

Our country produced many heroes, but not many could match the bravery of the whistle-blowers who made this historic turn possible. Their courage was enormous, as was the personal price they themselves, and their families, were about to pay so this country would stand a chance. 

After the first meeting with Brian Currin and Mark Heywood, and the next day with Daily Maverick CEO Styli Charalambous, Editor-in-Chief Branko Brkic met with amaBhungane’s Stefaans Brümmer to plot the way forward in what was to become South Africa’s own Watergate, aka the #GuptaLeaks. 

Their plan: We do this properly. We do this together. All the way.

On 1 June 2017, the first set of stories from the #GuptaLeaks was published. 

Editorial: The #GuptaLeaks revealed

In the intervening eight weeks, we were betrayed, battered, worried sick, exhausted and PTSD-ed. We worked hard and under extreme duress. One of us had a massive car crash. 

What was supposed to be our best effort to deeply understand the dark depths of the Gupta family’s capture of South Africa was temporarily to become an unnecessary race for headlines with our competitors. 

One day after our first salvo of exposés, and in order to gain a wider audience for our investigations, we accepted News24 editor Adriaan Basson’s request to join the project.

All in all, the #GuptaLeaks team eventually involved more than 20 of South Africa’s top journalists and several international organisations, an early example of how different teams can gather together to tackle projects that transcend their individual abilities and strengths. 


Dive into the #GuptaLeaks

  • Ten revelations from the #GuptaLeaks that changed the course of SA
  • Read the editorial that first announced the #GuptaLeaks
  • This chapter from our book, We Have a Game Changer, tells the story of how the #GuptaLeaks came to be
  • Watch the first meeting of the team who exposed the #GuptaLeaks

A gestalt that we created for the #GuptaLeaks formed bonds that will never be broken. A sense of mission and the common purpose that everyone on the team shared will not easily be matched again. We were so committed to the project that we even decided to forgo individual bylines.

From the earliest days of the project, our major concern was the whistle-blowers’ and team’s safety and the integrity of the data and our research. 

After a major betrayal, we ended up scooped by the Sunday Times and City Press, but in the longer run, amaBhungane’s many years of near-maniacal concentration on all things Gupta was our secret superpower that no one could match. 

The involvement of our competitors also widened the media participation so that it became impossible to stop it, even through repression. The field was strangely uncontested by the Guptas and their assorted accomplices. The Hawks chose to remain quiet, leaking to City Press that our stories were derived from a criminal act and were therefore inadmissible (both claims incorrect). And the NPA… what NPA?

All in all, we published more than 70 exposés, and, together with the contributions from Sunday Times, Business Day, Financial Mail and City Press, the lid on the Guptas’ takeover of South Africa was forever blown.

Zuma and his family were exposed for being kept people.

Politicians and other assorted Gupta lackeys were suddenly out of their shadows: Ace Magashule, Malusi Gigaba, Des van Rooyen, Mosebenzi Zwane, Lynne Brown, Brian Molefe, Anoj Singh, Matshela Koko, Siyabonga Gama, and dozens more.

International companies like Bell Pottinger, McKinsey, SAP, Liebherr, China South and China North railways and many more suffered massive hits to their image and ability to conduct business in South Africa. All over the country, people suddenly knew where the White Monopoly Capital slogan was cooked, what Estina was, why Oakbay is fatally tainted and how McKinsey tried to fleece Eskom.

Possibly the most consequential result of the #GuptaLeaks was arguably in the ANC’s internal sphere: it was impossible to claim ignorance about the Guptas anymore. After Makhosi Khoza first went strongly against the brothers, the CR17 campaign seemingly acquired a new zest for an anti-corruption stance, which ultimately carried them to the win at the 2017 Nasrec conference. 

(Even then, they won against Zuma’s chosen successor, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, by only 179 votes, a clear warning of how deeply entrenched was the State Capture bunch within the nerve centre of South Africa’s ruling party.) 

Talking about nerves, Jacob Zuma needed full control over his runaway face lines as the cameras of the world trained on his face upon learning that Cyril Ramaphosa would be the next ANC president.

This theatre of self-control was missed by the three main impresarios – the Gupta brothers were out of the country, by then. Most of their money already externalised, they did not need the aggravation any more. That, and the threat of a multitude of court cases with them as central characters. 

Five years later, the brothers Gupta and their close collaborator Salim Essa  are sanctioned by the Magnitsky Act in the US. Rajesh and Atul are under an Interpol Red Notice. And a few second-tier lieutenants and enablers have been arrested. That’s pretty much it.

As we watched the last five years of the fight against State Capture, many of us from the team that started it all have good reason to be disappointed about what happened since then. Zuma and the Gupta lieutenants have fought much harder than most could have expected. Will we ever know the full picture and will the people who brought South Africa to the edge, and still keep it close to the edge, ever pay the price they deserve for their sins? It is difficult to predict. Some of them are even actively trying to change the meaning of “sin”. Most just behave as if they’ve been right all along. 

South Africa’s badly damaged state was left to recover after the Capture, a task that was met with mostly failing grades, though some signs of the action are finally starting to be visible, including the recent arrest of the Gupta’s right hand, former Oakbay CEO Ronica Ragavan and her co-accused.

Chief Justice Raymond Zondo and his State Capture Commission have put a gigantic and valiant effort into understanding the magnitude and depth of what happened to our country, and the largest chunk of it was connected to the Gupta brothers. The size of the problem and the quantum of damage, however, are likely to overwhelm the South African state’s resources.

And yet, let’s just imagine what would have happened if the #GuptaLeaks never happened. That alternate history would have also been the end of South African history. We are truly proud of this contribution.

But once more, let’s honour the whistle-blowers who are still silent about their contribution. They were the true heroes. One day we hope we will be able to walk with them, their heads held high, and announce to South Africa who was so crucial in bringing the Guptas down. 

Until such time, our friends, we know who you are. In the name of the entire country, we salute you for your courage and selflessness. You could have made the more comfortable choices. You chose the only right one, which also happened to be the most painful. South Africa is forever in your debt. DM

PS The #GuptaLeaks team ended up winning every award available, from Taco Kuiper to Vodacom, and from Nat Nakasa to Global Shining Light award, which we proudly shared in Hamburg 2019 with the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa’s Rappler. Our wins do not in any way diminish great efforts from our competitors/colleagues from The Sunday Times, Business Day, Financial Mail and City Press. All of us, together, have changed the country.

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Comments - Please in order to comment.

  • Nic Tsangarakis says:

    We’re hugely proud of what you’ve all achieved. For all our country failings, let’s not forget the many strengths and the good (like investigative journalism and a free press) that we enjoy. Because of this (and other reasons) there is still hope my friends.

  • Grace Reid says:

    Thank you, thank you for your courage and perseverance.

  • Franco Esposito says:

    …and just as well!

  • Gavin Craythorne says:

    A gracious piece.

    • Ricky Rocker says:

      Can I ask that as a reader you please take a moment to consider to how much we – and all of our families – benefit from the incredible work this team does.

      Now ponder briefly how important it is for all of us and how grateful you personally are to continue to avoid #completelyscrewed

      And now, if you don’t already, do the right thing; do the clever thing; do the thing that will save us all:

      Subscribe – investigative journalism needs you, and more importantly, you need it.

  • Peter Dexter says:

    Thank you to the DM, Amabhungane teams, and all whistle blowers for your massive contribution. Please keep up the great work

  • William Kelly says:

    Amen. And thank you.

  • Angela Williams says:

    Your contribution has been invaluable ! Your generosity to other News Contributors must also be applauded. Thank you for all the sacrifices made by your team !!

  • Penny Philip says:

    You guys are incredible & literally saved SA from becoming another utterly failed African state.

  • Confucious Says says:

    Thank goodness DM (and its compliment) is around and is not scared to expose the reality of the crap that the plunderers do! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Well done!

  • Anne Page says:

    You are right to remind us of those bad days of the Gupta/Zuma hegemony. Bravo indeed for your vital work on the leaks in 2017. But do not forget the funeral of sometime Government minister and diplomat Makhenkesi Arnold Stofile, in August 2016, in Alice, Eastern Cape. There Sipho Pityana, making the main tribute, was possibly the first prominent ANC member straightforwardly to criticize the ANC government in the presence of several of its members and the media.

  • Stephen Kettlety says:

    This article highlighted everything I would have said, if only I had the intelligence, forthought and writing skills to put it all together. Thank you all for everything that you do for the citizens of this country.

  • Gerrie Pretorius Pretorius says:

    “Politicians and other assorted Gupta lackeys were suddenly out of their shadows: Ace Magashule, Malusi Gigaba, Des van Rooyen, Mosebenzi Zwane, Lynne Brown, Brian Molefe, Anoj Singh, Matshela Koko, Siyabonga Gama, and dozens more.”
    Unfortunately most, if not all of the abovementioned plus of course jz himself, still occupy senior positions in the anc and their so-called government. They should have all been behind bars in orange overalls years ago. What an absolute shame on the anc and the NPA.

  • Johan Buys says:

    Brilliant work that all South Africans should be proud of and grateful for.

    Projects like this scream out for crowd-funding.

  • Ed Schultz says:

    Great work! Well done. Why has DM/Amanbungane not yet set someone to investigate the NPA to ferret out the captured attorneys that still lurk there hampering investigations and expose them?

  • Justin Vickers says:

    Thank you for your relentless effort & courage. To everyone at the DM team, you are bloody legends!

  • Gregory Michael Van Der Krol says:

    Thank goodness for all you brave, courageous and determined people. All South Africans are truly in your debt. I salute you all. Thank you.

  • Beyond Fedup says:

    SA is hugely indebted to you in the media and the whistleblowers who exposed and drew the line against the vile Zuma and his diabolical cronies. We can’t thank you enough! 🙏

  • Steven Burnett says:

    The whistle blowers remain true national heroes, I do hope they are doing well, and the time for acknowledgment of their sacrifice is not too distant.

    As for Lady Macbeth,I guess she still hasn’t apologized yet for almost crashing the whole party.

  • Alley Cat says:

    Thanks to you and your team and the brave whistleblowers… GREAT JOB!
    It just Irks me that the NPA continues to boast about the progress on the small fry. When are they going to go for the big fish who are so brazen and unconcerned that they continue to maintain a public profile sniping from the sidelines at De Ruyter and his team? DISGRACEFUL!

  • rowan mentis MENTIS says:

    It’s so good to read this article and be reminded of what has been achieved by ALL of those who have been extraordinary in their investigative journalism. I feel very emotional in my gratitude and pride. I daren’t think about what could have been without you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

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