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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nAs investigative journalist Thanduxolo Jika says in the documentary, \u201cIt\u2019s been almost ten years of unabated looting. They estimate that it\u2019s close to a trillion that the whole state capture debacle cost the country. A country that has got the highest unemployment rate, the highest rate of people who live in poverty. A trillion could have changed their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe country has never known anything other than state capture – under Apartheid, it was the same,\u201d says Kaplan. \u201cSo in a way, everything that we\u2019re experiencing was built into the system. The Guptas didn\u2019t invent anything – they just perfected it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPart of state capture in South Africa was not just the extraction of funds from institutions like Eskom or Denel or whatever it is,\u201d says then finance minister Pravin Gordhan in the documentary. \u201cIt was also the capture and the almost decapitation of the relevant law enforcement institutions. You had a double whammy. You had the freedom to steal but you also had freedom from prosecution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In How To Steal A Country, journalist Richard Poplak traces the turning of the tide against the Guptas to their landing at Waterkloof airbase, a National Key Point, for a family wedding. \u201cI think one of the defining moments in the history of democratic South Africa was the landing at Waterkloof,\u201d says Poplak. \u201cThis moment of overreach where they flexed so much muscle, you know, they strained their biceps so massively, they actually tore through their clothing and we got a peak at how this actually works.\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nFormer president Jacob Zuma\u2019s firing of two finance ministers in quick succession raised further questions, but the smoking gun was the #GuptaLeaks – a trove of over 300 000 emails and documents akin to the Panama Papers, laying bare the modus operandi of the Guptas and their associates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Gupta leaks are this huge treasure trove,\u201d says investigative journalist Susan Comrie in the documentary. \u201cWhat we figure out from the leaks is that you\u2019ve got Gupta lieutenants heading up state-owned companies. You\u2019ve got ministers that are in their pockets; you\u2019ve got these all-expenses-paid trips to India, Dubai. We figure out that the president\u2019s son has a residence permit in Dubai. I mean the emails really confirm the inner workings of deals that have been made between Gupta companies and particularly the big state-owned companies, Transnet and Eskom.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking about the Gupta leaks, Poplak says, \u201cI\u2019ve tried to describe to people all the time what it\u2019s like to be inside those emails. You kind of feel the revoltingness sort of rise up your oesophagus as you go along.\u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe problem with the news is we get all these snippets and small parts of the jigsaw puzzle but we never get to see the full picture,\u201d says Desai. \u201cThis film in many ways was a response to the then minister of finance\u2019s appeal to join the dots – and from the feedback we\u2019re getting, people find it jaw-dropping and gobsmacking and surreal when they see it all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“At times the documentary is hard to stomach because we are reminded of how brazen the looting was,\u201d says Kaplan. \u201cAnd how close we still are to becoming a failed state in big part as a consequence. What we have tried to do in the film is to show just how bad it was. But, in actuality, it was much worse.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think the post-COVID world will have a lot less tolerance for this kind of thing,\u201d says Desai. \u201cIt\u2019s clear we need a different type of society and that all available resources will now be required to make society less vulnerable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Former president Zuma and the Gupta family have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. To date, there have been no successful prosecutions of people involved in state capture,<\/p>\n\n\n\n