Gupta-era minister Lynne Brown returns to advise ANC — despite SA’s State Capture scars

The ANC has confirmed that a former Cabinet minister at the heart of the State Capture project has been called on to help the ANC in the Western Cape with strategy.

“The ANC Western Cape legislature caucus confirms, as widely publicised, that former leaders of the party who served in the legislature and the party’s provincial structures were invited to participate in the caucus’s strategic planning,” said the ANC’s Khaled Sayed, who is the leader of the opposition in the Western Cape legislature.

The meeting was first reported by City Press/Rapport. (City Press is paywalled.)

Brown was at the heart of the State Capture project as she enabled the Gupta network at Eskom, Transnet and Denel by using her position as the minister of public enterprises to influence board appointments at various state-owned companies, the commission of inquiry into State Capture found.

As Marianne Merten reported, a prior parliamentary inquiry found that Brown and her predecessor, Malusi Gigaba, had been “grossly negligent in carrying out their responsibility”.

The commission made the finding, but did not recommend further investigations or prosecutions as it did with other political leaders who faced its scrutiny. Daily Maverick reported that Brown escaped a recommendation for further criminal investigation, but described her testimony as “ludicrous” and a “ridiculous excuse”.

The commission found that she had lied under oath when she said she did not communicate with State Capture linchpin Salim Essa, who engineered the Guptas’ extractive network. Its investigators found that he had a hotline to her when she served as a Cabinet minister.

With former Cabinet ministers Gigaba, Mosebenzi Zwane and Faith Muthambi, the quartet earned the sobriquet “…the Gupta ministers” in mass social media.

Read more: Hawks present State Capture progress – MPs question token convictions and Gupta extradition failures

Asked if her presence was not out of kilter with the ANC’s plans for renewal (code for the party’s anti-corruption drive), Sayed said: “These leaders (Brown was invited along with James Ngculu and former US ambassador Ebrahim Rasool) were invited and engaged based on their previous experience and knowledge, owing to the respective capacities in which they have and do serve the ANC as loyal cadres and members of the movement.

“The current phase of renewal of the ANC, including in the Western Cape, involves drawing on the experience, wisdom, lessons and learnings, arising from the reservoir of leaders who have and continue to serve the ANC in various capacities,” said Sayed.

Old liberation struggle loyalties make the ANC do strange things in democratic times. In the Western Cape, party leaders escorted Tony Yengeni to jail when he was found guilty of fraud for accepting a Merc from arms dealers back in the days of the Arms Deal, the first big post-apartheid corruption scandal.

The Brown invitation is on-brand for the ANC, as is the fact that all the other Gupta ministers, except for former mines minister Mosebenzi Zwane, are ANC MPs now. The graphic below shows that not one of the Big 30 State Capture accused (or representatives of companies) is within a hair’s breadth of a successful prosecution or of going to jail.

McKinsey Africa made refunds as part of deferred prosecution agreements (a corporate alternative dispute resolution process) with the National Prosecuting Authority and the US Department of Justice, admitting to bribery under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Bain returned its fees and apologised.

Daily Maverick’s Top 30 list is a work in progress as we assess the impact of the commission of inquiry into State Capture and the lack of successful prosecutions.

Last week, the case against former ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule took a body blow after the botched extradition of his secretary Moroadi Cholota. Listen to this podcast from News24 for more (News24 is paywalled) and Suné Payne’s report on the NPA’s week from hell. DM