Opinion by Daniel Sutherland

July 3, 2017


Con you here, con you there – Gupta scam artistry that let billions flow to Dubai

I am catching up on the investigative work done by the amaBhungane team. I just read their report on Adv Geoff Budlender’s report into the Trillian Company that is 60 % owned by Salim Essa, who is the Gupta family’s brains. [AmaBhungane: McKinsey caught up in Trillian lies: Daily Maverick. The mentioned report deals with the hundreds of millions that Trillian conned out of Eskom. By the way, Trillian did the same with Transnet as well. There is a definite pattern here. Trillian made hundreds of millions out of both Eskom and Transnet. Together it must be well over a billion for so-called consultancy work.

In both the so-called consultancy contracts with Eskom and Transnet, Trillian was the BEE partner of McKinsey. Another thing that I notice is that these Trillian guys think that bullshit baffles brains. When asked about what they actually did, they string many important sounding words together from the colonial language English in such a long sentence that when you read it, you don’t know what they actually said. These guys are basically con artists, and the same names come up every time- Salim Essa and Eric Wood. This is a con job, pure and straightforward.

Two key people who were in on the con is Brian Molefe and Anoj Singh. These are 2 key members of the Zupta cartel. They were the CEO and CFO respectively at both Transnet and Eskom, at the time of the Trillian contracts with Transnet and Eskom, and also on the date of the Transnet R50 billion locomotive tender, where the Guptas skimmed off R5 billion from China North Rail and China South Rail as so-called ” commissions .” Anoj Singh was also directly implicated in the R 100 million bribe that Neotel paid to Transnet for Neotel to get a tender with Transnet. The money was given to a Gupta letterbox company called Homix. This was part of a wider bribery racket at Transnet, which operated on the principle that any company that wanted a tender with Transnet had to pay a 10% bribe to a Gupta front.

This is pure scam artistry, and these guys specialize in it. This is not a hard job; you must just be good at conning and scam artistry. You can sit in a bar doing this, and draw up the documents and deals from there. Rake in the billions in profits for basically saying that you provided “advice.” And then making further money from the information, because they appointed Sahara Systems – Gupta-owned – subsidiaries to implement the advice they gave. This is a racket. In the old days before Zupta, Eskom would do all its own work, by its own employees.

These tenders for consultancy work are just a way to rip off money, billions of it. These criminals will bankrupt the country, all while running WMC campaigns to divert attention from what they are doing. This orgy party of looting is going to end in tears, and then scapegoats will be sought. This country will end up bankrupt. Anoj Singh, that main cog in the Zupta looting machine is still CFO at Eskom. There is already a pattern, anger will be directed towards whites, and made the scapegoat. This country is dead. Unless something changes very very soon. Be warned, we have to take the criminals out, before you start losing your pensions.

Opinion by Daniel Sutherland
South Africa Today – South Africa News