Guptas, what Guptas? State Security Agency says it has ‘no records’ concerning the brothers

Two years have passed since the United Arab Emirates (UAE) refused South Africa’s request to extradite Atul and Rajesh Gupta to South Africa.

The Guptas – in particular brothers Atul, Ajay, and Rajesh – have become synonymous in South Africa with the era of State Capture under former President Jacob Zuma.

The Zondo Commission estimated that Gupta-related enterprises were paid R57-billion in government State Capture contracts, making them roughly R15.5-billion in profits.

While South Africa’s law enforcement agencies purportedly continue their quest to bring the Guptas to book, the State Security Agency (SSA) revealed in an answer to Open Secrets’ information request that records concerning the Guptas’ whereabouts and activities between 2018 and 2023 “do not exist”.

In April 2023, Open Secrets submitted an information request under the Promotion of Access to Information Act (Paia) to the SSA. The information request came after then minister of justice and correctional services, Ronald Lamola, announced that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had refused to extradite Atul and Rajesh Gupta to South Africa following the issuing of an Interpol Red Notice and their subsequent arrest in the UAE in 2022.

While this development dealt a blow to efforts to prosecute the brothers, the statement contained another equally shocking piece of information – the South African government did not find out about the UAE’s refusal to extradite until almost two months after it had happened.

Read more: 37-day head start: Guptas’ lawyers knew about failed extradition long before SA was informed

To try to piece together this perplexing revelation, Open Secrets requested a broad set of records from the SSA, including emails, meeting minutes and internal reports for the period of May 2018 to April 2023.

Our request was for records that include any information relating to:

• The business activities in the UAE of Atul Gupta, Ajay Gupta and Rajesh Gupta and their known associate Salim Essa;


• The whereabouts and activities of Atul Gupta and Rajesh Gupta in the UAE, including their movements within and outside the borders of the UAE;


• Any efforts to extradite Atul Gupta and Rajesh Gupta to South Africa, including their whereabouts during extradition proceedings; and


• Any information on the conduct of authorities in the UAE as it pertains to efforts to extradite Atul Gupta and Rajesh Gupta.

As is often the case with information requests, there was an expectation that part or the whole of the request would be denied, and that any documents provided may be highly redacted by the SSA.

However, on 13 June 2023, Open Secrets received a surprising response: in a sworn affidavit, as is customary with official Paia responses, SSA’s Deputy Information Officer Nkhuliseni Elijah Luvhengo stated that:

“The above requested information does not exist within the SSA and therefore there are no records to provide or decline the provision of.”

The cover letter accompanying the affidavit, signed by the then director-general of the SSA, Ambassador Thembisile Majola, doubled down on this point, stating simply that the records requested “do not exist”.

The SSA is South Africa’s central intelligence apparatus and is mandated to “provide the government with intelligence on domestic and foreign threats or potential threats to national stability, the constitutional order, and the safety and well-being of our people”.

However, the SSA has been plagued with issues, including politicisation, impacting on its functioning over the years. In fact, this is not the first time the SSA’s lack of action on the Guptas has raised concerns.

Stymied

In 2011, an attempted investigation by the SSA into the Guptas was stymied by both then state security minister Siyabonga Cwele and Zuma.

The Zondo commission found that had the SSA investigated the Guptas in 2011, it “could probably have prevented at least some of their activities that led to the State Capture and, by all indications, the loss of billions of Rands,”  a sobering reminder of the SSA’s pivotal role in protecting us against national security threats.

Considering the Gupta brothers’ deliberate and successful efforts to corrupt and weaken South Africa’s democratic state for their own benefit and the state’s apparently ongoing attempts to bring them back to South Africa to face prosecution, it is almost impossible to imagine that over almost six years, our intelligence services have not generated even one email, report, or meeting minute mentioning the whereabouts and/or business activities of two of the most prominent members of South Africa’s most wanted family.

There are only two explanations for this: either the SSA has no interest in monitoring or locating the Guptas, or it is party to a lie under oath, which is a criminal offence.

Unfortunately, the Paia process does not provide a mechanism to test the veracity of the SSA’s statement in response to Open Secrets’ request.

The truth may at this stage be impossible to determine, and while neither conclusion provides one with much comfort, it serves as a reminder of the radical transformation needed within the agency. DM

Jane Borman is an attorney at Open Secrets.