Thrilling GuptaLeaks Film Shows How Rotten the Zuma Years Were

There could be no better time than right now, in the midst of the Cornavirus pandemic, to watch the thrilling yet sickening new film “How to Steal a Country.” The main thought that goes through your head – watching how the Gutpas systematically took down the government with the cooperation of Jacob Zuma – is this: Imagine if that smug, corrupt man had been the president now, in a true time of crisis.

It is estimated in the movie, made by award-winning Rehad Desai, that at the end of all the corruption and stealing, the country lost a cool R1 trillion. That is exactly double the economic package that Ramaphosa announced this week to see the country through the collapse caused by the pandemic. As one of the journalists who exposed the scandal says, that was money that could have been spent uplifting a country with one of the largest unemployment and poverty rates in the world.

If you think you know the full story of what happened after the private jet full of the Guptas’ Sun City wedding guests landed at Waterkloof Air Force Base in 2015, think again. That incident triggered the public consciousness that something was going dreadfully wrong in the top echelons of government, and the movie sets it up like a thriller.

It starts with the Deep Throat-like moment when in early 2017 two whistleblowers give lawyer Brian Currin the GuptaLeaks emails. Many stories had been written in amaBhungane and Mail & Guaridan suggesting things were very wrong in South Africa, but as journalist Susan Comrie says, they needed hard proof. With the GuptaLeaks emails, the house of Gupta truly fell.

Across the stage wander many characters you will know well, the heroes (Barbara Hogan and Pravin Gordhan are two that consented to talk on camera) and the villains (Malusi Gigaba, Brian Molefe, Anoj Singh, who’s pitiful performance at a parliamentary enquiry, where he is taken on by Pravin Gordhan, you won’t want to miss). There are other moments that are similarly classic: Video footage of the wedding at Sun City. That painful BBC interview with the simpering Duduzane Zuma, making a smug joke about corruption (and who, in the next scene, is seen in leg chains). The TV interview with Tim Bell of “White Monopoly Capital” creator Bell Pottinger, who blatantly lies on camera.

Because it is now all in the past – and we can see more clearly – the movie sets up, like dominoes, how the Guptas went after one SOE after another, Transnet, SAA, Denel, Eskom, It’s almost breathtaking to see it laid out like this. And once they had them, they went after the rest, the police, SARS, the public protector’s office. By that time, as Ngoako Ramatlhodi told the Zondo commission of enquiry into state capture, anyone who reached the president’s office would reach an office with no power at all.

The main journalists interviewed in the movie are Susan Comrie, Thanduxolo Jika, Richard Poplak and Ferial Haffajee. Comrie explains best the true depth and ignominy of what she saw unfolding before her. As she says, when they read the GuptaLeaks emails, it wasn’t as bad as they had thought it was, it was worse.

One is also reminded of the hatred and vilification that these investigative journalists had to deal with at the time. Haffajee recalls the dirty messages and lewd fake pictures that were posted online of her in the arms of Johan Rupert, among others.

“How to Steal a Country” also highlights the lack of action on the part of major international corporations that were complicit in the grand theft, KPMG, SAP, HSBC, McKinsey, among others. There is a sense of resignation in Comrie’s voice at the end, that many of the guilty parties could escape before they could be brought to justice, and it’s unlikely anyone will pay back the big money they stole.

But the movie is proof that the journalists didn’t do it for nothing. And thanks to them, in no small part, the president that let it all happen is gone.

Watch “How to Steal a Country” on Showmax.