Raymond Zondo

It's a story about a system under serious pressure trying to hold its ground and, in some places, actually winning.

The State Capture Commission, led by Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, started its work in 2018.

It named one thousand four hundred and thirty-eight people from across government and business as implicated in corruption.

It took years to complete.

His phone records would later show extensive contact with GOPTA linked numbers during key procurement decisions.

According to later investigations by the Zondo Commission, the GOPTA network received 41.2 billion rand in irregular contracts during Molefe's tenure at Transnet, 72% of all payments they received from state entities.

Malefe, along with Chief Financial Officer Anuj Singh and board member Imba Sharma, facilitated these contracts through deviations, improper confinement, and the changing of tender evaluation criteria.

Now every corruption network needs a financial gatekeeper.

Treasury officials who raise red flags are sidelined.

Intelligence chiefs who flag the Guptas as a national security threat are replaced.

The Zondo Commission would later describe the Guptas approach as dividing South African officials into two categories, the facilitators and the resistors.

Facilitators are rewarded, resistors are destroyed.