The evidence given by South Africa’s former Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas – that controversial businessman Ajay Gupta “threatened to kill” him if he disclosed they met in 2015 – has shocked the nation.
Allegations of corruption have swirled for many years now but the suggestion that it may have morphed into some form of mafia operation during the presidency of Jacob Zuma has left many people bewildered.
Mr Gupta has previously denied meeting Mr Jonas, but the former deputy minister told a judge-led inquiry into state corruption that the meeting did take place and the businessman “threatened to kill” him if he spoke about it.
It is the most explosive allegation that the commission has heard since it began sitting in South Africa’s main city Johannesburg earlier this week.
In fact, the African National Congress (ANC), the party in power since the end of white-minority rule in 1994, is under scrutiny at the inquiry.
When it was fighting for the freedom of black people, no-one could have foreseen the level of corruption that has affected it.
Both the Gupta and Zuma families have denied any wrongdoing.
