Churches lift lid on state capture

The SA Council of Churches has gone where the ANC feared to tread on state corruption, and warned that the country risks collapsing if the governing party does not act on the ‘systematic siphoning of state assets pivoted around President Jacob Zuma’, notes Legalbrief. ‘The country is going to collapse. It is difficult to rebuild once you go into lawlessness,’ SACC secretary-general Malusi Mpumlwana is quoted as saying in a News24 report. The SACC has launched its Unburdening Panel report that puts together damning allegations of corruption in various multi-billion rand tenders, including the R50bn Transnet locomotives, nuclear deal, Eskom's coal contracts, and the partnership between VR Laser and Denel. It was launched at the historic Regina Mundi church in Soweto. The SACC began compiling the report after the ANC’s failed probe into allegations of state capture. It was triggered by former Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas’ allegations that the Gupta family had offered him R60m to take up the Finance Minister post, and Vytjie Mentor, who alleged that the family offered her the public enterprises post if she would drop the SAA flight route to India in 2016. Mpumlwana said the Unburdened Panel offered a ‘safe space’ for individuals who had been pressured to participate in corruption. ‘It soon became apparent that there were discernible patterns of the systematic undermining of governance that go beyond petty corruption, so as to seriously threaten the constitutional democracy,’ Mpumlwana said.