STATE CAPTURE
South Africa sends top officials to UAE over Gupta extraditions
South Africa’s state prosecuting authority urged the presidency to help resolve an impasse with the United Arab Emirates over what it described as the Gulf nation’s lack of “willingness” to help extradite Atul and Rajesh Gupta, who are wanted on charges of money laundering and fraud.
Read more: In defence of Shamila Batohi — her chalice was poisoned from the start
The decision to involve President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office was taken after Batohi’s request to meet with her UAE counterpart on the issue was snubbed, she said.
“We realized that unless there isn’t that strong political push in the UAE, we’re going to struggle with this matter,” Batohi said. “I am not sure there is any willingness to really assist South Africa in this matter at a technical level and I am not sure at a political level because mutual legal assistance ultimately, although it is a technical process, depends on political will.”
The UAE’s Foreign Ministry didn’t immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
The rare media briefing by Batohi and the renewed drive to bring the Guptas back to South Africa coincides with the ruling African National Congress preparing next month to face its toughest election since 1994. Opinion polls suggest the party may lose its majority for the first time because of voter dissatisfaction of issues including rampant crime and corruption.
Ramaphosa has made little progress since coming to office six years ago in rooting out graft in the ANC and the state, after repeatedly pledging to do so. He’s estimated that at least $32 billion may have been stolen from state coffers during Zuma’s tenure.
Fighting corruption and prosecuting complex financial crimes is also key to getting South Africa removed from the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force’s global dirty-money watchlist.
Batohi wants the delegation to return with a “commitment at the highest level that the UAE will support South Africa” in its request for both the extradition of the brothers and sought after evidence related to their alleged wrongdoing, she said.
Senior representatives of the glorious liberation movement who mobilized the resources of the state to facilitate their spiriting away are working hard to get them back? That would be good news if it weren’t such patent BS.
We can always rely on a grossly inefficient, inept, beyond stupid and thoroughly compromised state to finally wake up from their self-induced slumber! The horse has bolted long time ago and taken the proceeds of their grand theft with them. If only SARS, the Reserve Bank, NPA, Hawks etc. had acted with the same vigour and sense of purpose like they have in swiftly seizing the assets (rightly so) of Berdine Odendaal, then we could have saved billions. Dispensing justice in SA depends on how connected you are with the anc (elite & cadre) and have loads of money to pay for odious lawyers like Mpofu etc. whose whole mission in life is to protect the thieves and charlatans, most often at taxpayer’s expense.
The Guptas are no longer in the UAE, they headed for some remote Pacific island some time ago !