Former South African President Jacob Zuma’s replacement, Cyril Ramaphosa, has received the last chapter of a massive report investigating suspected corruption in that country.
More than 5,000 pages made up Judge Raymond Zondo’s report.
It portrayed a nation whose finances had been emptied by its former president and his allies, the well-known Gupta brothers.
Additionally, he was charged with stopping an inquiry into potential financial wrongdoing by the Gupta family. The Gupta brothers and Mr. Zuma both denied wrongdoing.
The study also exposed the Guptas’ influence over the appointment and dismissal of government ministers.
It found that Mr Zuma enabled, indirectly, the Gupta family members to occupy a place of prominence to the detriment of the country.
The South African authorities were currently working on having the Gupta brothers extradited from the United Arab Emirates to answer to their alleged crimes.
The commission’s chairman has also recommended that election rules be amended to allow for South Africans to directly elect a president instead of using the party system.
This, he said, will prevent the country from having another leader as Mr Zuma.
Mr Ramaphosa must now decide whether further legal action should be taken against his predecessor.
South Africa’s former President, Jacob Zuma, has been accused of having a corrupt relationship with members of the Indian-born Gupta family, and even letting them interfere in ministerial appointments.
Although both Mr Zuma and the Guptas have denied any wrongdoing, these allegations were one of thereasons people wanted him to resign.
So who were the Guptas and how close were their links to President Zuma?
Brothers Ajay, Atul and Rajesh (also known as Tony) Gupta, all in their 40s, relocated to South Africa from India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh in Saharanpur in 1993, just when white minority rule was ending and the country was opening up to the rest of the world.
Family spokesman, Haranath Ghosh, told the BBC by email that their father, Shiv Kumar Gupta, sent Atul to South Africa, believing that Africa was about to become the “America of the world” – the world’s land of opportunity. -BBC
