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Under pressure to pay Eskom back nearly R600-million following a tainted deal, a broke Trillian Capital Partners says that Salim Essa, the Gupta family’s one-time chief lieutenant, left hundreds of millions of rand in unpaid ‘shareholder loans’ that he had extracted from the company.
The amounts are, to quote commission evidence leader Matthew Chaskalson, “extraordinary”. At points Judge Raymond Zondo appeared defeated by the sheer volume of numbers, murmuring: “I’m just digesting”. What was on display was not just the quantum of plunder, but also the efficiency of the Guptas’ vast and sophisticated money laundering machinery. To give one example: on 29 April 2016, a Gupta-linked company called Cutting Edge Commerce submitted an unsolicited proposal to Eskom to provide the unusual combination of “data management and cleaning services”. Noted Holden: “[Th...