At an historic secret ballot of no confidence in the South African Parliament yesterday, the country’s scandal-hit president survived – but by a small majority of 21 as up to 40 of his own ANC MPs rebelled against him.

South Africa is now at yet another crossroads.

At the recent funeral of one of Nelson Mandela’s closest friends and fellow long-time Robben Island detainee, his ex-wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (herself an MP) said: “All what we fought for is not what is going on right now … our country is in crisis and anyone who cannot see that is just bluffing themselves.”

At the very spot in Cape Town where Mandela gave his first speech after his long walk to freedom in 1990, thousands of protesters assembled and then marched on Parliament today to demand Zuma’s removal.

This being fractured South Africa, they were joined by large numbers of pro-Zuma supporters.

Meanwhile, roads from the Mandelas’ one-time township home in Soweto into the economic capital Johannesburg were barricaded with rocks and burning tyres from early morning as protesters took action across the province.

Unemployment hit a 14-year high this week as Zuma’s stewardship of a fragile resources-based economy – now officially in recession – bites deep.

A promising national economic blueprint dreamed up at the start of Zuma’s presidency has been abandoned.

The economy of South Africa – a member of the exclusive G20 club of nations — is now growing at half the worst-case scenario rate envisaged by the experts Zuma appointed five years ago.

State-owned companies — the supposed engines of economic growth and job creation in ANC’s economic policy – have stuttered and stalled.

The state electricity utility, the freight and passenger rail companies, the national airline and the arms manufacturer all enjoy near-monopoly status in South Africa, but are increasingly being propped up financially by the government.

To support them, public money is diverted from other urgently needed social programmes – education, health, housing.

It is here – in the beating heart of the country’s economic machine – that a huge corruption scandal threatens to engulf Zuma, his party and perhaps the country.

And it is a scandal that has been exposed by good old fashioned investigative journalism in the face of sinister intimidation and threats of violence.

Over the past several weeks, the terms “state capture” and #Guptaleaks have dominated social media in South Africa, but beyond its borders not much is known.

What are the #GuptaLeaks and ‘state capture’?

The phrase “state capture” has emerged to describe a situation where a business family, the Guptas, enjoying close ties to Zuma, have manoeuvred themselves into a position where they allegedly wield control over state-owned companies and their huge procurement budgets, diverting huge sums into their own pockets and, by extension, Zuma’s family.

The Guptas are a family of Indian immigrants who arrived in South Africa from the early 1990s onwards, apparently spurred by the business promise of a newly democratic, post-apartheid state.

The family is headed by three brothers — Ajay, Atul and Rajesh.

So closely have the Zumas and Guptas become entwined that they are popularly referred to as the Zuptas.

The key connection is Zuma’s son, Duduzane, whom the Gupta brothers took under their wing a decade ago and groomed for a role as a director – and billionaire shareholder – in the family’s business empire.

The Guptas are allegedly able to influence state procurement through the cascading appointment of their cronies, via Zuma-appointed cabinet ministers to key positions on decision-making committees.

In several instances, would-be ministers have reportedly been informed of their cabinet appointments first by the Guptas, before receiving the official call from President Zuma.

All this has been highlighted by one of the biggest leaks in the history of South African journalism.

Earlier this year, investigative journalists obtained an enormous trove of emails and documents from the heart of the Gupta business empire. The subsequent exposés, dubbed the #GuptaLeaks, appear to confirm the state capture hypothesis that journalists have been chipping away at for years.

For example, the latest story from the leaks, published on Tuesday, reveals how the Guptas bankrolled the loan repayments for a house owned by President Zuma’s fourth wife.

They channelled the money in part via Duduzane, dipping into a Dubai-based slush fund set up to receive kickbacks from the successful Chinese winner of a major South African state locomotive tender.

The #GuptaLeaks have lifted the lid on a multinational money laundering machine, dubbed the Dubai Laundromat, into which the Guptas allegedly funnel cash derived from state contracts in South Africa.

How did the Guptas benefit financially?

The cash is derived in two ways: either directly from contracts with state-owned companies won by Gupta-owned businesses; or from “success fees” solicited from international companies wanting to do business with the South African state.

So far, the #GuptaLeaks have exposed how kickbacks were paid or facilitated to the Guptas by foreign companies throughout the world.

They include a Swiss construction company, two German IT giants, a multinational management consultancy, a Chinese state outfit, and a major accounting firm.

• #GuptaLeaks: all the latest on the Gupta-Zuma scandal.

And the Guptas certainly know how to spend their gains.

Having operated somewhat under the radar during the early years of Zuma’s presidency, the Guptas shot to national infamy in 2013 when they persuaded a raft of government departments to bend the law, allowing them to land an airliner of wedding guests from India at a high-security military air base near the capital, Pretoria.

The South African “wedding of the millennium” between a Gupta niece and her Indian fiancé, was designed to showcase the family’s wealth and influence in their adopted home.

Their Indian guests were whisked to the sprawling Sun City leisure complex by a VIP convoy of blue light-fitted vehicles normally reserved for government dignitaries, where they mingled with a who’s who of South African politicians and businessmen.

An inquiry held in response to the public outrage about multiple breaches of national security and protocol heard that “Number One” – an apparent reference to President Zuma – had pulled strings in the Guptas’ favour.

The #GuptaLeaks have subsequently revealed how the Guptas sucked cash out of a state-funded rural development programme and sent it to Dubai, where it briefly washed through the “Laundromat” of Gupta companies before it was used to pay the wedding bills back in South Africa.

Multinational auditing firm KPMG waved the transactions through, turning an apparent blind eye to “related party” transfers, thereby allowing the Guptas to also claim millions in tax-deductible expenses.

KPMG said it “stood by our work done and audit opinions issued”, but its former Africa head attended the wedding and wrote thanking the Guptas gushingly afterwards: “I have never been to an event like that and probably will not because it was an event of the millennium.”

Meanwhile, the leaks have also unearthed a letter, drafted by the Guptas on President Zuma’s behalf, in which they ask the Abu Dhabi crown prince to consider granting Zuma and his family residency in the country. While Zuma denied wishing to make the emirate a “second home” it has been confirmed that Duduzane obtained residency.

Suspicions that the Guptas have been preparing a Dubai bolthole for Zuma were enhanced by media reports, based on the leaks, that the Guptas had acquired a £19-million mansion in an exclusive Dubai neighbourhood intended for Zuma’s use. The property is just a few doors down from a pad owned by Zimbabwe dictator Robert Mugabe.

Zuma’s spokesperson said he owned no property outside South Africa.

Paralysis of the proud ANC

Throughout these, and many other scandals throughout the Zuma presidency, the once-proud African National Congress (ANC) party has stood paralysed, unable or unwilling to confront the Zupta state capture phenomenon.

With many of its officials allegedly “captured” by the Guptas, the ANC’s inaction is perhaps unsurprising.

The social cost has been enormous – not least in the fraying of race relations which Mandela’s ANC worked so hard to build.

As the public outcry against the Guptas reached a crescendo last year, UK public relations firm Bell Pottinger – founded by Margaret Thatcher’s former PR guru Lord Tim Bell – stepped into the breach to spin for the Guptas on a £100,000-a-month contract.

So, despite the mountain of dirty laundry already in the public domain about the Guptas relationship with Zuma, the firm accepted a brief – partly in consultation with Zuma’s son Duduzane – to run a counter-campaign blaming white-owned businesses for perpetuating “economic apartheid” in South Africa.

Somehow, it was “white monopoly capital” standing in the way of genuinely aspirant black businessmen – like the immigrant Gupta family – from fulfilling their full economic potential in the country.

Bell Pottinger now stands accused of stoking racial tension in the country, aimed at its white population in general and at the media in particular.

Intimidation of journalists

A pop-up movement called Black First Land First has subsequently targeted editors and journalists at the forefront of exposing the Guptas’ dealings.

At one point, Bell Pottinger gave feedback about a prospective article proposed by the movement’s leader. The PR firm also scripted speeches subsequently delivered by ANC politicians at political rallies.

For the past eighteen months, an army of fake Twitter bots and one-man blogs have spewed a torrent of racially-charged invective into public discourse around the Guptas and Zuma.

Although such tactics have not been conclusively shown to be the brainchild of Bell Pottinger, a public outcry forced them to drop the Guptas last year.

Last month Bell Pottinger’s CEO James Henderson initially offered “a full, unequivocal and absolute apology”.

He then told the BBC in an interview last week: “At worst, we were very naive in what we got involved with, but there was, at any point, no intention to create the impact that is claimed we created.”

But the atmosphere in South Africa remains poisonous. Black First Land First recently barricaded an editor in his home, scrawling graffiti on his garage door, and assaulting a colleague.

Ignoring a subsequent court order barring them from intimidating journalists, the same group hijacked a public event hosted by investigative journalists to explain the #GuptaLeaks, manhandling a journalist to the ground.

A judge ruled earlier on Tuesday that the movement was in contempt of court, and handed its leader a three-month jail sentence, suspended on condition that they did not breach the order again.

For his part, Zuma will seek to direct the appointment of his successor to protect him and his family from future prosecution when his term as president ends in 2019.

But if he does one day face trial, expect the #GuptaLeaks to feature strongly as evidence.

*Finance Uncovered (@FinUncovered) is an associate of the #GuptaLeaks investigative team. This article first appeared in The Independent (UK).

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On 9 February 2016, Bell Pottinger sent Gupta lieutenant Santosh Choubey a document entitled “Master Q&A”, a menu of ready-made answers for the media.

In response to the question “Did the Guptas help President Jacob Zuma’s wife, Bongi Ngema-Zuma, pay off her R3.8-million home loan?” Bell Pottinger wrote, “No. This story is completely false. The Gupta family has not assisted Bongi Ngema-Zuma in any way.”

As South Africans have come to expect from Bell Pottinger’s now infamous disinformation campaign, the story, however, was completely true.

Bank records, accounting records and budgets show the Guptas and Duduzane Zuma paying as much as R3.4-million of the bond on the property, after making what appears to be an initial down payment of R1.15-million – giving a total of over R4.5-million.

The younger Zuma’s role in routing these payments suggests he was not in business with the Guptas “on his own accord”, as his father has claimed, but at least partly as a bagman for the Zuma family.

Equally damning, the money trail suggests the president’s wife – and by extension Zuma himself – benefited from the proceeds of corruption laundered from Dubai.

The presidency, Ngema-Zuma and the Guptas did not reply to questions sent late last week.

A gift with a view

Set on the exclusive Waterkloof Ridge that overlooks Pretoria and the Union Buildings, the property was bought for R5.24-million in April 2010 and became Ngema-Zuma’s home.

A person with first-hand knowledge said that the president personally inspected the sprawling property before the purchase. A neighbour said he had been known to visit regularly.

Deeds office records of the transfer identified the Sinqumo Trust as the buyer, and Ngema-Zuma as its trustee.

Named after the president and Ngema-Zuma’s young son, Sinqumo, the trust is more opaque than most. Public lists on the department of justice website, which usually shows trustees and other basic detail, omit the Sinqumo Trust altogether.

In response to earlier amaBhungane attempts to inspect the trust records, the master of the high court in Pretoria, where the records should be kept, maintained they could not be found.

In the absence of the records it is not known whether the president is a trustee alongside Ngema-Zuma or has rights to the trust assets. But even if he has no formal connection to the trust, he arguably benefits given that the property is home to his wife and son.

Six years of denial

R3.84-million of the R5.24-million purchase price was bond financed by Bank of Baroda, the Guptas’ favourite lender.

Given the provenance of the bond, amaBhungane asked a Gupta spokesperson in 2011 whether the family had helped Ngema-Zuma to buy the property by paying the purchase price, facilitating financing or helping repay the bond. He said: “The answer to all your questions is no.”

When amaBhungane confronted the Guptas with additional evidence of their links to the bond in 2012, one of their senior executives dismissed it as “irrelevant” and “absolute rubbish”.

The #GuptaLeaks show that the bond was serviced by the Guptas and Duduzane Zuma generally at a rate of R65,000 a month from the outset.

They also show that on 18 August 2010, the day after the deeds office effected the transfer to the Sinqumo Trust, R1.15-million was paid into Sinqumo’s current account. This is consistent with it being a down payment; the bulk of the difference between the purchase price and the bond amount.

The R1.15-million in turn came from Gupta company Islandsite Investments via Pragat Investments, which at the time was involved in a scandal over the attempted hijacking of iron ore mining rights at Sishen.

Although Pragat was nominally owned and controlled by then Gupta executive Jagdish Parekh, #GuptaLeaks records suggest it was financially integrated with the Guptas’ Oakbay group. Parekh did not answer questions before going to press.

Duduzane, the businessman bagman

When President Zuma appeared in Parliament in June this year, he was pressed by DA leader Mmusi Maimane on Duduzane’s relationship with the Guptas.

Zuma painted his son as an ordinary citizen who was legally entitled to go into business, like anyone else. Duduzane, he said, was “involved in business on his own accord” and that “whoever he does business with, is his own business”.

The #GuptaLeaks evidence strongly suggests that Zuma’s statement was untrue. Whatever business the younger Zuma may have done on his own accord, he also was an apparent conduit for Gupta money to benefit the Zuma family.

Mabengela Investments, a company named after the hills overlooking President Zuma’s Nkandla homestead, is majority owned and controlled by Duduzane Zuma and Rajesh “Tony” Gupta.

Records show that Gupta money was routed through Mabengela to pay the Waterkloof Ridge bond.

So, for example, the same R65,000 amounts that ended up as the first three instalments in September, October and November 2010, can be seen from accounting records to have flowed to Mabengela from Islandsite Investments and Oakbay Investments, both Gupta companies.

Mabengela income statement and budget records show R1.65-million flowing and budgeted to flow from it to the Sinqumo Trust during the 2012/13 and 2013/14 financial years.

Transfer instructions submitted to Absa, as well bank records, show that these “investments”, as they were called, were used to pay monthly installments of R65,000 on the bond during those two years.

In some months, Mabengela directly transferred R65,000 to Sinqumo Trust’s Bank of Baroda accounts. In others, Mabengela transferred the same amount of R65,000 to “D Zuma”, “DZ – BOB” and “DZ”, in apparent reference to Duduzane Zuma.

Trains, cranes and kickbacks

Apart from the monthly bond repayments, Mabengela also paid a R535,000 lump sum to Sinqumo on 2 September 2013.

Of this, nearly a third seems to trace back to offshore Gupta accounts stocked with kickbacks from Transnet contracts.

It would be a serious indictment if bribes were laundered to a sitting president’s wife.

We exposed the alleged Transnet kickbacks in June and July. These included R1.4-billion received from locomotive manufacturer China South Rail (CSR) and at least R55-million from Swiss crane manufacturer Liebherr.

A contract between CSR and a Gupta-related company made it clear the CSR payments were commissions in return for Transnet locomotive contracts. Similarly, payments from Liebherr flowed contemporaneously with Transnet crane contracts.

Gupta accounting records then show the funds flowing into and through their offshore network.

Sitting in the middle was the Guptas’ US relative Ashish Gupta.

In 2013, he was just 26 years old with no apparent business profile. Yet, he somehow had over R100-million at his disposal, which he transferred to Oakbay Investment in a handful of tranches between 30 August and 6 September.

Purportedly, the money was Ashish Gupta’s “advance” contribution for a mining partnership, but there is scant evidence that his money was used for this.

The payments landed in Oakbay’s State Bank of India account. Typically, the cash was immediately disbursed across a number of Gupta company accounts using multiple back-to-back transfers.

Among these, Oakbay paid R150,000 to Mabengela on 2 September 2013. Immediately after receiving the funds, Mabengela transferred R535,000 to Sinqumo’s account at Baroda.

Ten months later, Ashish Gupta’s R100-million was reimbursed by Accurate Investments. Accurate is a Gupta front company in the United Arab Emirates, which by then had received much of the CSR and Liebherr money.

CSR and Ashish Gupta have not responded to emailed questions. Liebherr has said it is investigating the allegations.

The facilitator

While the Guptas repeatedly lied to South Africa about their funding the purchase, there was one entity which was well aware of the true nature of the arrangement and which also had a legal obligation to report suspicious transactions: Bank of Baroda.

Baroda had Ngema-Zuma swear a statement entitled “Information Required by the Bank to Comply with the Financial Intelligence Centre Act”, as part of the process to obtain the bond.

Ngema-Zuma declared that “the source of income/funds to finance the purchase of the property by [Sinqumo] is the following: – own funds and Bank loans”.

Even if Baroda – the Guptas’ long-standing banker – was not at that moment privy to the real source of Ngema-Zuma’s funds, it quickly should have been.

Records suggest the source of the funds was no mystery to Baroda. Regularly, as funds from Mabengela reached Sinqumo’s current account at Baroda, they were immediately used to pay Sinqumo’s bond instalments.

Baroda did not reply to questions.

A curious omission in Zuma’s financial disclosures

Zuma’s history of relying on others to support his family is well known.

His loans from arms-deal convict Schabir Shaik and Durban businessman Vivien Reddy are prime examples.

Zuma disclosed in the public section of his 2009 Cabinet interest declaration that a businessperson provided a luxury home for the use of another of his wives in Durban for free, even though some family benefits may be declared in a confidential section.

Yet, Zuma’s 2014 Cabinet declaration is conspicuously silent regarding Ngema-Zuma’s receipt of Gupta cash. Under “gifts/sponsorships – immediate family”, Zuma indicated under her name: “Nothing to declare.”

In the public section of his 2016 declaration – by which time the Waterkloof Ridge bond was presumably fully paid as it had a five-year term – Zuma declared the “use” of properties on the Durban beachfront and in Forest Town, Johannesburg.

He also declared two books he received – Mastering negative impulsive thoughts and Ethics in decision-making.

A party fit for a criminal enterprise

While countless questions about Zuma’s relationship with the Guptas remain, the #GuptaLeaks do, at the very least, shed light on their relationship with Ngema-Zuma.

In addition to the bond payments, Ngema-Zuma was also employed by the Guptas’ JIC Mining Services for a while as of 2010.

In 2011, JIC chief executive Jacques le Roux told amaBhungane that Ngema-Zuma “contributes in an important way towards JIC’s corporate goals and has the respect and admiration of all her colleagues”.

AmaBhungane and Scorpio can now report that Ngema-Zuma’s last official act at JIC (at least as revealed in the #GuptaLeaks) was to co-ordinate the company’s year-end party in 2011.

In retrospect, South Africans might consider the theme chosen for the evening particularly apt.

On 17 November 2011, Ngema-Zuma addressed an email to her colleagues, requesting that they RSVP.

Ngema-Zuma further noted: “Dress Code for the event is themed ‘MAFIA’.”

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This has been revealed in the #GuptaLeaks which shows that Mngxitama met with Gupta lieutenant Santosh Choubey in February 2016 and that he asked the family for funding around the same time.

Mngxitama has denied receiving any money from the Guptas despite aggressively defending them.

A new email has been discovered that suggests Mngxitama did more than just meet the Guptas; that he actually received instructions from the family and that his “free” voice may, at least once, have been steered by London PR firm Bell Pottinger and the Guptas.

In the trove of emails that form part of the leaks there is an email address, teammedia2016@gmail.com, which is also known as “media profile”. The address seems to be a shared account where Bell Pottinger, the Guptas and staff including Choubey discussed their media campaigns.

It was from this email account that Mngxitama was sent a message on 11 March 2016.

The email was titled “Peter Bruce!” and it included an attachment of an opinion article written by Bruce, the Tiso Blackstar editor-at-large. The opinion piece was based on a legal letter the Guptas had sent to Hogg. Hogg published the letter sent to him by London-based reputation and privacy consultancy Schillings on his online site.

Bruce weighed in on what was seemingly a legal letter from Schillings, saying it showed the Guptas were anxious, but their move was sure to backfire because Hogg was no pushover, businessmen would help fund a defamation claim for Hogg and “it will intensify efforts to prove Gupta/Zuma links the London lawyers say don’t exist”. He also said a trial will open opportunities to discover what the Guptas had been up to.

In the body of the email, the author of “team media” asks Mngxitama, “Pls see, and the part where he writes about Alex (sic) Hogg funders, can you write on this something and send some questions to him, for source of funding, legal/illegal, who are the funders. Thanks.”

The email appears to be an instruction to Mngxitama to write about Hogg and to send him questions.

Hogg, along with Bruce, are among a list of journalists that Mngxitama has openly stated he is gunning for as “white racists”.

– Read: BLF warns white journalists

When called, Mngxitama told us he did not know what we were talking about and asked that he be emailed queries, which he has not yet responded to.

The Gupta leaks show that New Age journalists followed up on Bruce’s opinion piece by sending him and Hogg questions about the funding of Biznews.

Further emails to and from the “media profile” address give more insight into how Bell Pottinger and the Guptas were attempting to change the national narrative.

One of these was the PR firm writing “opinion pieces” and then publishing them, giving them bylines of people who either did not exist or in no way had anything to do with the writing of the piece.

On the same day Mngxitama was sent instructions on what to write, Choubey sent former Oakbay executive Nazeem Howa and other TNA staff an article titled “South Africa must break economic apartheid”.

The article was earlier sent to Choubey by Bell Pottinger employee Philip Peck in order to support the angle that the group was under attack for supporting black business.

In response to Choubey asking for space in the New Age, Howa responded that it “needs to go under someone’s name as an opinion piece”.

The article appears to have been published a few days later under the byline “John Britain”.

– Read it here.

An email from Bell Pottinger’s Peck further indicates the extent to which the firm was involved in managing fake Twitter accounts which were pushing a “white monopoly capital” agenda.

In his recent apology about work done for the Guptas, Bell Pottinger chief executive James Henderson said: “There has been a social media campaign that highlights the issue of economic emancipation in a way that we, having now seen it, consider to be inappropriate and offensive.”

On February 11, 2016, Peck emailed the “media profile” address to give feedback on his review of the Twitter accounts and websites of “sympathisers”.

The email said they had “reviewed the Twitter accounts and website of your sympathisers provided (from an objective / neutral point of view) and have the following observations:

• They are having little impact on the debate

• They are using information that hasn’t been changed much / at all from Oakbay Investment information

• They were set up recently and at a similar time to when the issues started.

“Based on these facts we believe that as long as these are not linked to you in any way or that you are not influencing the editorial agenda then just let them continue. Otherwise they should stop immediately.”

The email address was also used to send information to another company Oakbay hired to work in tandem with Bell Pottinger: Schillings.

Bell Pottinger’s Victoria Geoghegan, who had since been fired by Henderson, appears to have put the Guptas in touch with Schillings, sending Choubey a client care letter and standard terms of reference for an initial fee of £75 000 (about R1.2m), followed by two payments of £25 000 (about R419 000).

The Schillings agreement, which is included in the emails, indicates the law firm had been hired to send legal letters to media houses with the intention of preventing them from writing negative articles on the Guptas.

The objectives of their work were listed as:

• Reducing the volume of negative media coverage in national and regional South African media outlets;

• Ensure that future media reporting about you is based on true facts, as opposed to rumour and innuendo;

• Ensure that going forward you are contacted prior to publication and are given a proper opportunity to respond.

Their strategy was specifically framed around a successful legal complaint against a media house.

‘Prolific offenders’

“As part of this strategy, we have discussed focusing our legal complaints on the Sunday Times and the Mail & Guardian, as they are the most prolific offenders. In addition, a successful legal complaint against one or both of them will send a strong message to other South African media outlets,” Schillings wrote.

The emails show that legal letters were sent to the newspapers. Another one was sent to Hogg, which he wrote about, leading to Bruce’s column.

After Hogg published the letter, Howa sent an email to the “media profile” email account, saying “Alex Hogg has decided to publish the Schillings letter. In one way, it is good that it gets broader audience, on the other hand he has called our bluff. Let’s decide next step today.”

Atul Gupta responded to the email, indicating he too had access to the media profile email address saying they must “handle him with full focus ASAP”.

Bell Pottinger employee David Bass said they too had seen “Alec’s latest piece of work”.

“We certainly need to make an example of him,” Bass responded.

In another email sent from the “media profile” address to Bass and Howa, there is a further instruction: “Brief to Schillings should be on the lines of Go for The Kill” referring to Hogg.

Asked for comment to their role in defending the Guptas, Schillings responded in two letters, putting us “on notice” if we published a story.

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Even the deputy president’s office was fair game. Investigations show they zeroed in on some of the nation’s most sensitively placed staff, including the head of the Presidential Protection Service as well as Zuma’s chief of staff, his private secretary and a chief director in the deputy president’s office.

In certain instances, some of these officials appear to have returned favours, potentially subverting their positions in the Union Buildings for the Guptas’ benefit.

The fact that Saxonwold’s most influential family attempted to recruit people close to the president raises questions about the nature of their relationship with Zuma: were they trying to spy on him? Or were they putting in place a back channel allowing him to communicate with them via trusted intermediaries?

Since the #GuptaLeaks provide mere glimpses of these relationships, only the president, the Gupta brothers and the officials in question know the whole truth. The four officials we feature here have all denied impropriety or said they carried out their duties with professionalism.

One official, however, said she would “be more vigilant and judicious in professional relationships” in future. The Presidency and the Guptas did not respond to detailed questions.

Major-General Muzingaye Mxolisi Dladla: head of Presidential Protection Service (2010-date) and long-time bodyguard to Zuma

As the Scorpions anti-corruption unit were raiding Zuma’s Johannesburg home in August 2005, two vehicles screeched to a halt outside the gates. Out poured several automatic rifle-toting members of the elite Presidential Protection Unit.

A tense armed stand-off ensued between Zuma’s protectors and his would-be prosecutors. Zuma – then a private citizen – was entitled to protection by this elite South African Police Service unit, who guard the country’s current and former presidents and deputy presidents together with their families.

Among the protectors who rushed to Zuma’s side that day was Dladla.

Ever since then, their fortunes have closely tracked one another. Zuma escaped the corruption charges and became president; Dladla rose rapidly through the police ranks to head the Presidential Protection Service, as it is now called. Both are controversial figures.

Zuma’s indiscretions are well known, but Dladla escaped attempted murder charges in 2010 after he was accused of spraying three Uzi submachine gun rounds at an elderly motorist in Durban who got in the way of Zuma’s blue light cavalcade.

Zuma paid tribute to Dladla at a funeral in 2011, thanking him and other members of the so-called Echo Squad for standing by him during his darkest days in politics, including thwarting an alleged assassination attempt when he was deputy president.

The relationship has only grown closer: investigative magazine Noseweek alleged in 2012 that Dladla commanded a secret spy unit within the protection service, tasked with monitoring Zuma’s rivals and ensuring his re-election as ANC president.

It now appears that Zuma’s friends, the Guptas, became equally enamoured of Dladla – and rewarded him for his specialist services.

An early clue of their relationship includes an August 2010 email chain from the #GuptaLeaks showing that a Sahara sister company intended to send Dladla and his then wife, long-serving Presidency official Mogotladi “Mo” Mogano (see below) on a weekend getaway to the Maldives.

Both Dladla and Mogano told us they never travelled to the Maldives, with Mogano confirming that “whilst Sahara did make an offer, my then partner and I did not receive tickets and did not undertake the offered travel”.

However, the emails indicate that Gupta executive Ashu Chawla went as far as requesting a Johannesburg travel agent to “issue and email me the [air] ticket” for the couple, quoted at R9 290 per person on Emirates.

A source, who asked not to be named for their own safety, told us that the Guptas at one stage prepared documents transferring legal ownership to Dladla, but then the property burned down.

A second source in the Presidency independently recalled how a house where Mogano was living with Dladla in 2010-11 had burned down.

Mogano referred our queries about the property to Dladla, who claimed that his company never traded but remained silent on the circumstances in which he appears to have made extensive use of a Gupta-owned property.

What use did the Guptas make of their connections with Dladla? An unsigned 2013 affidavit unearthed in the #GuptaLeaks shows Tony Gupta explaining to the police how he procured VIP blue light escort services for the family’s wedding guests.

The Guptas were in trouble because the black BMW escort vehicles they used had been illegally fitted with blue lights and false number plates.

Gupta’s affidavit, submitted as part of the police investigation into the wedding debacle, makes the astonishing claim that the president’s top bodyguard was responsible for procuring the illegal VIP escort service.

Gupta states: “I requested General Dladla to advise me on road transport security under circumstances explained to him … where guests arrived at Waterkloof Air Force Base and had to travel by car through rural areas to Sun City.”

“I indicated that I would pay for these services without any reservation. I am aware of an initiative within the South African Police Service where members of the public can insist on protection/control services at a prescribed fee.

“General Dladla requested me to furnish him with information and inter alia the flight schedules of the guests,” Gupta states, after which Dladla appears to have taken care of the Guptas’ needs.

“On or about 30 April 2013, I noted certain protection vehicles and members of the SAPS accompanying the group of guests from Waterkloof … to Sun City. I did not find this awkward given the requests mentioned,” says Gupta.

“I expected an invoice from the SAPS for the services rendered … On or about 30 April 2013, I received an invoice from a company called S & M Transport … indicating a request for payment for an amount in excess of R500 000. I did not expect an invoice from S&M Transport and I do not know who S&M Transport is. I further do not know who Salomie Manamela is and I had no arrangement with the aforesaid person to send me an invoice for ‘escort services’.”

Gupta, who was in serious trouble at the time, may have been playing dumb but the identity of S&M Transport and Manamela remains a mystery.

But that was the end of the matter: there is no mention of the company or Dladla’s alleged role in securing its services in the inquiry’s final report.

Responding to our questions, Dladla flatly contradicted Gupta, saying he played no part in “any logistic arrangements either at Sun City or at Waterkloof Air Base”.

However, he confirmed that he “provided an affidavit to SAPS which set out the facts as part of an investigation which was held”. This investigation’s findings have never been made public, but all indications are that both Dladla and Gupta wriggled off the hook.

Like a cat with nine lives – again, mirroring his boss, Zuma – there is one final similarity. Michael Hulley, Zuma’s private legal advisor, prepared Dladla’s responses to our questions.

Denying that he had been captured by the Guptas, or acted to further their interests, Dladla said: “I have performed my duties in relation to President Zuma as a member of SAPS with the discipline and professionalism that it deserves.”

Lakela Kaunda: deputy director-general and head of private office of the president (2009-); chief operating officer in the Presidency (2014-)

Lakela Kaunda is Zuma’s fiercely loyal chief of staff, who has worked beside him in various roles since the mid-1990s.

Emailed diary appointments contained in the #GuptaLeaks show Rajesh “Tony” Gupta accepting a flurry of diary appointments with Kaunda on four occasions between 11 December 2012 and 31 January 2013.

On the fourth occasion Kaunda met Gupta, the email calendar shows a “Bruce” attending – a possible reference to Bruce Koloane, the then chief director of state protocol.

Kaunda’s own meetings with Gupta shortly before this raise questions about her role in the Waterkloof landing debacle.

Koloane was subsequently forced to resign for her role in facilitating the Gupta wedding plane landing at Waterkloof air base, and several military officers who approved the landing later testified they believed instructions had emanated from “Number One” – a codename for Zuma.

Kaunda does not dispute the meetings with Gupta, only that Koloane was not present.

He could not be contacted to verify this. Kaunda also denied playing a role in facilitating the Guptas’ aircraft landing needs, saying, “I actually discovered about the wedding landing at Waterkloof when Radio 702 broke the story on the day of the landing itself. I was totally unaware of it before then.”

Be this as it may, the Guptas were keen at this point to do business with Kaunda. Between the third and fourth successive meetings, as scheduled in Gupta’s email calendar, Kaunda ceded her 100% share in Ntomb’nkulu Investments CC to her son, Siphesihle.

She then forwarded confirmation of the new shareholding to Gupta on 23 January, stating that “we will use this vehicle”.

Asked why she had ceded her shares to her son, and for what activity would Ntomb’nkulu be a “vehicle”, Kaunda repeated the explanation she had given to the Sunday Times in June: “I initially thought of closing down the company as I was not using it, but then felt it would be cost effective to keep as it already existed and we had paid for the establishment. I then decided to cede it to my son,” she said.

“When they [the Guptas] said they wanted to offer a business opportunity and asked if I had a company that could be utilised, I then sent that email about Ntomb’nkulu … the offer of going into business with the family was declined and the matter was never pursued.”

At the time, Islandsite 255’s joint directors were Tony Gupta and Zuma’s son, Duduzane. Islandsite 255 is Gupta-controlled Oakbay Resources and Energy’s BEE partner in Shiva Uranium.

In response, Kaunda said: “It is the first time actually that I hear of that cession of the shares or that resolution. Ntomb’nkulu Investments does not own shares in any company whatsoever.”

Dixie Investments, the company meant to cede the shares to Ntomb’nkulu, retained its stake. For now, at least, the public will have to take Kaunda’s denials on trust.

Delsey Sithole: private secretary in the private office of the president (2009-2012); director: events and protocol in the Presidency (2012 to date)

Zuma’s private secretary coordinates both his official and private diaries, and so knows what the president is doing when his formal duties are over for the day.

It is a unique special position of trust and responsibility, which entails liaising with the president’s security detail after hours to ensure he is safe.

The president’s private secretary is also a regular traveller as part of the president’s delegation on overseas trips. The woman Zuma entrusted with the task at the outset of his Presidency, Delsey Sithole, was very soon in the Guptas’ crosshairs.

Financial reconciliation records from the #GuptaLeaks indicate that Sithole received cash amounts totalling R8 310.78 from a Gupta company in June 2009, just a month after Zuma became president.

It is not known what the payment was for, and Sithole did not provide any clarification in her response to our detailed questions.

Fast-forward a year, Gupta brother Rajesh invited Sithole and her teenage son to watch the opening match of the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

A spreadsheet contained in the #GuptaLeaks shows that Sithole found herself amidst illustrious company in the luxurious Sahara suite in the iconic Soccer City calabash. Her inclusion hints at the development of a special relationship with the Guptas.

The family’s other guests for the match included India’s wealthiest businessman Mukesh Ambani and his family, as well as one of Zuma’s wives, his son Edward, and some of Zuma’s most trusted spies – the head of police crime intelligence, Richard Mdluli and his sidekick Nkosana “Killer” Ximba.

Sithole did not dispute her presence that day, telling us that, “I received many offers of hospitality from various companies during the 2010 FIFA World Cup.”

Fast-forward another two years, to early May 2013, and Sithole publicly displayed her loyalty to the Guptas. Despite the outpouring of public anger about the family’s brazen takeover of Waterkloof military air base to land a planeload of overseas wedding guests, Sithole crowed on her Facebook page: “Its [sic] good to be at Sun City. Some people are being tjatjarag [over-excited]. I am enjoying the wedding.”

By this stage, Sithole had been removed from her position as private secretary and redeployed to head the events and protocol division in the Presidency.

A source in the Presidency recalled a “security incident” involving Zuma’s diary that had occurred in 2011, after which Sithole was moved.

Details about the incident, including a rumour that the Guptas had accessed confidential details about Zuma’s diary via Sithole, could not be independently verified.

Sithole did not respond to the allegation specifically, but said: “In my previous capacity as private secretary, I interacted with various stakeholders on a number of occasions, involving various activities and my interaction with the Gupta family was in that capacity. Such interaction never promoted any unethical activity.”

She added that her move to protocol and events happened at her request, for “career growth and advancement” reasons.

But even after she moved out of Zuma’s private office, the #GuptaLeaks suggest that Sithole and Tony Gupta retained ties. For example, in September 2012, Sithole sent him the guest list for a Jacob Zuma Foundation fundraising dinner. The list includes a number of prominent Nigerian businessmen with investments in South Africa.

How Sithole obtained this it is unclear, as are her motives for disclosing it. Was she moonlighting on social events for Zuma’s private foundation and leaking intelligence to the Guptas about Zuma’s would-be private benefactors?

Sithole did not provide any answers.

The #GuptaLeaks emails show Tony Gupta accepting a diary appointment with one “Delicy Sithole” at Sahara’s Midrand offices in January 2013. Notably, this meeting was scheduled around the time of a flurry of meetings between Gupta and Kaunda (Sithole’s former boss in Zuma’s private office).

Sithole did not dispute that the meeting took place as scheduled.

A few days after this meeting, Sithole sent Chawla a CV for one Phatse Justice Piitso – a former SACP provincial secretary in Limpopo and South African ambassador to Cuba between 2009 and 2011 – requesting that Chawla “please forward to Tony”.

Again, Sithole is silent on the purpose of her email. As for Piitso, he was – or was soon to be – Sithole’s husband. Sithole told us that she sent the CV “in good faith to a stakeholder and acquaintance [Gupta] and there was never an encouragement of untoward expectations”.

Piitso said that he has sent his CV to many people, but denied that he got “any employment from the Gupta family or anything else from Mr Tony Gupta”. However, Piitso has cropped up recently as a pro-Gupta commentator.

In 2016, Bell Pottinger spin doctor Victoria Geoghegan shared Piitso’s name with a MoneyWeb journalist, as part of a list of “people who had agreed to talk on economic apartheid”.

The Guptas had hired the London-based PR firm on a monthly £100 000-plus (R1.5m-plus) contract, aimed at distracting public attention from the family’s murky business dealings.

Other pro-Gupta commentators and luminaries on the Bell Pottinger list included Andile Mngxitama, Ben Ngubane, Kebby Maphatsoe, Tshepo Kgadima and Lindiwe Zulu.

Earlier in 2017, Piitso also penned an eloquent defence of Brian Molefe, who had been exposed by the public protector as one of the Guptas’ accomplices in the nexus of state capture.

Piitso lavished praise on the former Eskom chief executive – then on his way to Parliament as an MP – calling him “one of the finest young leaders our movement has ever produced”.

In language that has become synonymous with pro-Gupta lobby, Piitso urged Molefe to “take forward the revolutionary programme of the second phase of our transition for radical transformation”.

Piitso ignored our question about his inclusion in the Bell Pottinger list, but said: “The revolutionary concept of white monopoly capital is not an invention of the Gupta family. It is a concept which seeks to define the development of monopoly imperialism and its characteristic features within the South African realities.

Throughout my life, I have written so many views about this important theoretical question and I will continue to do so.”

Piitso added that he did not seek compensation for his written work from any media houses.

Mogotladi “Mo” Mogano: assistant private secretary to the president (pre-2009); chief director in office of the deputy president (post-2009)

Mogano has worked in the Presidency for more than a decade, initially as assistant private secretary to Thabo Mbeki.

When Kgalema Motlanthe became president in September 2008, he inherited her services.

After Zuma succeeded Motlanthe, Mogano moved to the deputy president’s office with him, where she remains under Cyril Ramaphosa.

Because she has been ensconced in the office of Zuma’s main political rivals down the years, whilst married to one of Zuma’s most trusted bodyguards, Mogano’s relationship with the Guptas is worth highlighting. (See Muzingaye Mxolisi Dladla, above.)

Mogano can be linked to the Guptas since at least February 2009, when company registration records show that she became a co-director with Tony Gupta and Zuma’s son Duduzane in Karibu Hospitality.

The company became dormant in 2011 and was deregistered in 2013. Mogano said “nothing came of the venture,” adding that “I resigned before any business could be conducted or any trading could take place.”

We have already seen that a Sahara sister company booked return flights to the Maldives in 2010 for Mogano and her then-husband, the head of the Presidential Protection Service Muzingaye Mxolisi Dladla. Both have denied receiving the gift.

The couple also appears to have lived for a while in a Gupta-owned property, about which Mogano referred our query to Dladla, who in turn ignored it.

A source in the Presidency told us several years ago that Mogano had also “flirted with” a job offer from the Guptas, a tip-off that appears to be borne out by a June 2011 email from the #GuptaLeaks in which Mogano sends her “comprehensive resume” to Tony Gupta.

What job Mogano was applying for remains a mystery – she told us “there was no outcome” and she remains gainfully employed in the Presidency.

Mogano confirmed her attendance, with a friend, after her husband dropped out. She added that she had declared the hospitality as a gift in her annual declaration of interests. Mogano now appears keen to dissociate herself from the Guptas and Dladla, from whom she says she separated three years ago.

She concedes: “With concerns of state capture and as valid as they are, I do accept that such associations can raise doubts about one’s professionalism and loyalty to the public service code of conduct.”

But she argued that she joined the Presidency “with the full desire to serve the country and not personalities” and had maintained her top security clearance throughout her decade in service.

“I have not allowed my association with elements of the Gupta family enterprise to influence my work adversely or unethically, but have also learnt from recent events to be more vigilant and judicious in professional relationships,” she said.

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In such situations, it helps to have rich friends. Enter the Guptas. Emails from the #GuptaLeaks trove show that the Guptas picked up the R850,000 bill from the MKMVA’s 2010 national general council, with the money deposited straight into the MKMVA’s bank account.

In August 2010, the personal assistant of MKMVA Treasurer-General Sparks Motseki emailed Gupta lieutenant Ashu Chawla: “Kindly receive the MKMVA banking details as discussed with the Treasurer-General, Comrade Sparks Motseki.”

Attached to the email was an invoice for R850,855.40, for conference facilities, accommodation and food for four days at the Booysens Hotel and Conference Centre, south of Johannesburg. Included in the bill was a “gala dinner” totaling R45,500.

The emails do not record a direct response from Chawla, but the evidence shows that the bill was promptly paid. On August 19, 2010, Motseki’s PA emailed Chawla: “This serves to acknowledge the receipt of the sum of R850,000.00 transferred yesterday the 18th of August 2010 to MKMVA Pfumo account.”

Separately, the Gupta emails also confirm, as reported by Mail & Guardian in 2011, that MKMVA was given shares in the Guptas’ companies. An affidavit from 4 July 2014, signed by the MKMVA’s Thembile Magingxa, states that MKMVA was issued shares in the Guptas’ Islandsite Investments in 2011. MKMVA leader Kebby Maphatsoe was also invited to the Guptas’ controversial 2013 Sun City wedding.

The Guptas’ support of MKMVA leadership has not gone unreciprocated. MKMVA’s Maphatsoe has been a staunch public defender of the family in exchange, repeatedly chalking criticisms of the Guptas up to racism and xenophobia. In 2016, when the heat around the family was starting to rise, Maphatsoe described the Guptas as “friends of MKMVA” and said that the military veterans would defend them from unfair attack.

When news broke from the #GuptaLeaks emails that the Gupta family had helped the MKMVA with drafting media statements, Maphatsoe confirmed that the organisation had a “relationship” with the Guptas but denied that this extended to media assistance. MKMVA further rubbished reports that it had received media aid from British PR company Bell Pottinger, calling such allegations racist and insulting.

The emails show, however, that in July 2016 the MKMVA put out a statement defending the Guptas.

The statement was circulated among the Guptas’ media team, and in response Nick Lambert from Bell Pottinger wrote: “Many thanks – more excellent messaging on our behalf and, most importantly, using statistics to accompany the rhetoric.”

MKMVA leadership has also gone to some lengths to cast doubt on the authenticity of the #GuptaLeaks emails. MKMVA NEC member Carl Niehaus complained in an op-ed carried by the Independent group of newspapers on Monday that the GuptaLeaks reports were being released “in a closely co-ordinated and deliberately dragged-out process” to confirm mainstream media’s “particular narrative of state capture”.

Niehaus wrote: “At this stage there is no way to know whether all the emails that have up to now been released, or some, or any of them are authentic. The manner in which they have been obtained evidently does not make for obvious authentication, and one surely cannot expect from the hackers and the reporters – who obviously have a vested interest to claim they are authentic – to police themselves.”

Contacted by Scorpio on Monday, however, Maphatsoe coolly acknowledged the Guptas’ R850,000 payment in 2010 to the MKMVA.

“Some of these emails are true, like this R850,000 MKMVA event,” Maphatsoe said. “If my memory serves me well, it was for the national general council, and we requested funds from many people. We appreciated it. It’s not a crime to be assisted. It’s not corruption there.” He said that the donations were made “in good faith”.

Maphatsoe added: “Our relationship with the Guptas is not something we have been hiding.”

But the specifics of what the Guptas were funding may indeed have been hidden.

Omry Makgoale, an MK vet who has been openly critical of Maphatsoe and his fellow MKMVA leaders, told Scorpio: “We were not aware that [the Guptas] funded that conference. We thought that maybe [MKMVA leadership] got money from the Department of Military Veterans. We didn’t know, but we are not surprised.”

Makgoale is part of a group of dissident MKMVA members who are taking Maphatsoe and his cronies to court over what he says has been continued looting of the MKMVA trust.

“We know that the Guptas have been funding Kebby Maphatsoe and [former Treasurer-General] Sparks Motseki, all these guys. About five years ago we did a presentation for MK comrades showing how the Guptas are linked [to MKMVA].”

Makgoale put it bluntly: “MKMVA is captured by the Guptas. They funded them, and from there tell them what to do. MKMVA is colonised by the Guptas the same way that President Zuma is.”

In Makgoale’s view, the major utility of the MKMVA to the Guptas lies in the group being instructed to support the Guptas’ preferred presidential candidate.

The MKMVA does not have voting rights at the ANC’s electoral conference in December, but they still hold some sway at a branch level. The veterans have made it clear that Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is their choice for South Africa’s next candidate.

“Most of our members are leaders of their branches,” Maphatsoe told the Mail & Guardian in June. “So we have our way of how to influence the African National Congress processes.”

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The latest episode of the #Guptaleaks looks at Bell Pottinger, the UK-based PR firm that brought South Africa to the brink of a race war to protect the reputations of the Zumas and the Guptas.

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Haranath Ghosh’s LinkedIn profile lists him as head of sales and marketing for Infinity Media Networks, the media arm of the Guptas’ business which includes TV station ANN7 and newspaper The New Age.

But he has also held another job, serving as the Gupta family spokesperson on occasions in the past when Gupta actions have required spinning.

Evidence from the #GuptaLeaks emails shows, however, that it was not just the Guptas that Ghosh composed statements for. On at least one occasion, Ghosh also fabricated tweets to be sent out via the Guptas’ army of fake bots.

In September 2015, former Business Day editor Peter Bruce penned a column for the Sunday Times questioning President Jacob Zuma’s son Duduzane’s close relationship with the Gupta family.

The Guptas evidently felt that the charges warranted rebutting.

The #GuptaLeaks emails show that erstwhile The New Age publisher and then Oakbay CEO Nazeem Howa was roped in to compose a letter to be sent to Sunday Times editor Phylicia Oppelt for publication under Duduzane Zuma’s name.

“In my culture I have been taught to be respectful of my elders, so let me start with apologising in advance for taking issue with you and your columnist Peter Bruce for the almost defamatory references to me in his column on Sunday,” the letter begins.

“I know I am a young man, who grew up on the streets of Maputo, Lusaka and Harare before the fall of apartheid, so I am not as well-schooled as either of your good selves in customary business etiquette.”

It proceeds to complain: “Mr Bruce refers to me in the column almost as if I am a commodity that was traded for favours, claiming that I was enriched by the Guptas in order to ‘help’ our president.”

As amaBhungane and Scorpio previously reported, this statement of victimhood is richly ironic given that it was literally written by a Gupta henchman on behalf of Zuma junior.

But the letter alone was clearly not considered enough. What needed to accompany the letter was a flurry of tweets drawing attention to it and expressing support for both Duduzane Zuma and the Guptas.

Enter Haranash Ghosh.

In an email sent to the Guptas’ top brass – among others, Oakbay CEO Ronica Ragavan, Sahara CEO Ashu Chawla and Howa – Ghosh writes on 25 September 2015: “Attached suggested tweets which can be tweaked & tweeted in the social media”.

In the document attached to the email, Ghosh has listed proposed tweets to be broadcast – presumably from the Guptas’ collection of fake Twitter accounts.

The tweets were as follows:

• Good to see Duduzane come out and speak in his defence: Media can be ruthless on young black entrepreneurs Peter Bruce must apologise
• Dudu shd sue this bruce chap : so many innuendos in one article: is it not personal vendetta?
• In our media eyes all successful blacks are corrupt and immoral #sundaytimesfail
• If Guptas are immigrants then all jews are also immigrants: Peter bruce is spreading poison here
• This article by Peter Bruce borders on the line of Xenophobia: Dudu Zuma should demand apology
• Peter Bruce makes sweeping statements in this article- he also knows President hasn’t met guptas after waterkloof- Age catching up with him
• Guptas created over 7000 jobs and stay invested in our country…what is P Bruce’s claim to fame.
• After Duduzane’s response Sunday Times should apologise in their paper-nothing was true in the article.

The race-baiting tone of the fake tweets is doubly questionable if one considers the evidence to emerge from the #GuptaLeaks emails that the Guptas themselves appear to hold some racist, anti-black sentiments.

There is no sign that any of the tweets ended up being used in the direct form that Ghosh proposed, but the hashtag #sundaytimesfail was employed on numerous occasions by one of the Gupta sockpuppet accounts, @luiz_judy.

It remains to be uncovered just how extensive the Gupta network of fake social media accounts was – or is. The casual tone of Ghosh’s email suggests, however, that the use of fabricated tweets to undermine opponents and bolster support for the Guptas may have been routine.

Ghosh failed to respond to a request for comment before deadline.

Gupta lawyer and regular spokesperson Gert van der Merwe has refused to comment on #GuptaLeaks claims, saying: “I have no documents or context or instructions. It is inappropriate.”

Read more: In the non-surprise of the year, WMCLEAKS.com smear campaign tracked to a Gupta associate

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In so doing, the firm directly undermined the ANC’s capacity to communicate its own policies and programmes to South Africans and hijacked the ruling party’s message, seemingly to benefit the image of the Gupta family.

Victoria Geoghegan later invoiced the Marketing Quotient, a Dubai-based company part-owned by Gupta family lieutenant, Salim Essa, a “project fee” of £100,000 (About R2.3-million according to exchange rates in January 2016) for a consultation with Duduzane Zuma.

The two met to discuss a brief for a five-month campaign which Duduzane later described in a reply to Geoghegan as “not primarily one to affect the outcome of the elections [2017] but to turn the tide of our country’s trajectory in the long term”.

Earlier Geoghegan wrote to Duduzane that Bell Pottinger was keen to build a long-term partnership with Zuma and that “we want to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in communicating such a vital message for South Africa. The future of the country in terms of fair economic growth, an inclusive society and political stability, depends on it.”

Attached to the mail to Duduzane is a document titled “Reflections on meeting and next steps” in which Geoghegan sets out how she has had time to “reflect on our conversations and now have a deeper appreciation of the focus of the project and the potential for a long-term partnership between us”.

It reads: “1994 was a seminal year in South Africa’s history. The peaceful handover of power raised the hopes of many, and the expectation of imminent political AND economic enfranchisement was justified. The reality is that whilst political freedom has been attained there is a feeling that expectations of economic empowerment have not been met, with the wealth of South Africa sitting within a small grouping.

“With unemployment levels in excess of 20%, with the ANC approaching the 2017 elections following unbroken rule since 1994, with the political opposition (DA & EFF) upbeat there is a feeling that the next big key issue facing South Africa is that of delivering genuine economic empowerment. This feeling is widespread and has been expressed to us in emotive language using phrases such as ‘economic apartheid’ and ‘economic emancipation’.

“Furthermore, given that a lot of current criticism (for almost all of South Africa’s ills) is directed at President Zuma, and indirectly at the ANC, there is a need to explain in clear, unambiguous language that it is vital ‘economic emancipation’ is addressed.

The people of South Africa need to be told that their dissatisfaction is being heard and that concrete actions are being, or will be taken to address them.

“In addressing this issue, the language and psychology used will be crucial. If world markets become spooked by fears of a Mugabe-style programme of asset seizure, then it is all South Africans who will suffer. However, if the message is one of a process that generates wider economic inclusion, using contemporary business models, then ALL South Africans will benefit equally.

“Equally, the message we wish to disseminate is not one that can be sold overnight. For this campaign to be believed and to achieve credibility there will need to be discipline, continuity and consistency over a period, ideally running up to the 2017 elections and beyond. The key to any political messaging is repetition and we will need to use every media channel that we can, to let our message take seed and to grow.

“Below is a set of recommendations based upon an initial project, with the opportunity for further projects to evolve. These tactics are not exhaustive and would be developed into a full and comprehensive strategy.

• Create a non-party political narrative around the existence of economic apartheid and the vital need for more economic emancipation. This narrative should appeal to both potential third party advocates in the business and academic communities and the grass-roots population;
• Provide assistance and advice on the setting up of a vehicle (the ‘entity’) to be the public face of the narrative;
• Whilst the narrative/vehicle is intended to be political party-agnostic, it will create opportunities for political commentary and participation;
• Bell Pottinger will package the narrative into speeches, press releases, website content, videos/broadcast content, slogans and any other material required;
• The initial project would draw on the strengths of both parties:
• Bell Pottinger’s strategic messaging skills, experience, international reach, and overall brand & credibility; and
• This would be complemented by the South African team’s access to domestic media outlets, digital capabilities and its in-country network;
• Utilise compelling research, case studies and data which illustrate the apartheid that still exists, and the need for truly inclusive growth. Bell Pottinger will analyse the data (for example: power generation, ports) and create fact sheets and easily understood collateral for wider dissemination;
• Engage media both domestically in South Africa, and internationally. This will reach both the all-important domestic audience, but also achieve international endorsement which will add credibility to the narrative and feed back into the domestic media also;
• It is critical that the narrative grabs the attention of the grass roots population who must identify with it, connect with it, and feel united by it. In order to reach this audience, the Bell Pottinger and South African teams will need to strategise the appropriate engagement tactics, be this radio, social media and/or slogans e.g. #endeconomicapartheid #growthforall.

“We will draw our team from across the Bell Pottinger Group. The day-to-day account management will be overseen by Victoria Geoghegan, Jonathan Lehrle, Nick Lambert, Darren Murphy (Tony Blair’s political adviser), and supported by a much wider team. Lord Bell will be available for strategic counsel as and when required. We will also have in reserve other divisions (digital, crisis communications) should we need a wider skillset.

“Bell Pottinger is keen to build a long-term partnership with you. Given our deeper understanding of the assets you have at your disposal, we envisage an initial five-month project (February 2016 to June 2016 inclusive), at a fee of £100,000 per month, excluding costs.

“Any costs would be communicated to the South African team in advance, and would not be incurred without your prior approval. Principal costs would chiefly involve travel and accommodation and we envisage a team from Bell Pottinger visiting South Africa each month.

“We hope that this demonstrates our commitment to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the South African team in communicating such a vital message for South Africa. The future of the country in terms of fair economic growth, an inclusive society and political stability, depends on it.”

On January 20, 2016 Duduzane responded to Geoghegan thanking her for her time and for making the trip to South Africa “on such short notice which created an immediate impression of the degree of seriousness from your side and I appreciate that.

You come highly recommended and you represent a powerful brand, I do not take that for granted.”

He writes that he has gone through Geoghegan’s document and, “I am quite happy and enthused by your understanding of what needs to be done and the time frames in which we need to do it in. I have to reiterate that, which you correctly put it, this ‘journey’ is not primarily one to affect the outcome of the elections but to turn the tide of our country’s trajectory in the long term.”

He ends with two requests, one that she forward the invoice to him and also asking for advice on another campaign he appears to be working on.

“It will include dispersing critical information, which I have researched and will share, in a short period of time. It will also require a visual campaign of sorts T-shirts/banners etc. Where I will require assistance whether it be in the designing and creating a hard hitting message along the lines of the #EconomicEmancipation or whatever it is.” 

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