The Republic of Gupta: A Story of State Capture by Myburgh Pieter-Louis

Author:Myburgh, Pieter-Louis [Myburgh, Pieter-Louis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: corruption, nonfiction, retail, South Africa
ISBN: 9781776090907
Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa
Published: 2017-04-24T00:00:00+00:00

18

Dirty money

Coal is a dirty business. Mining the sooty fossil fuel has been known to cause black lung and other pulmonary diseases.1 Coal mines also spew sulphurous water into nearby rivers and streams, sometimes irrevocably damaging these precious water resources.2 When coal-fired power stations burn the hard black rock to generate electricity, its effect on the environment, and on human health, is even worse. The toxic concoction of carbon dioxide and other pollutants that are released is a significant contributor to global warming.3 Given coal’s grimy qualities, it is almost fitting that the sale of it in South Africa has become equally grubby, at least as far as the Guptas’ coal activities are concerned.

The family’s intention to move into coal mining can be traced to 2006, when a group of known Gupta associates registered Tegeta Exploration and Resources, Tegeta Resources, and Idwala Coal. These entities subsequently obtained prospecting rights in Mpumalanga, Limpopo, the Free State and KwaZulu-Natal.4 Company documents, including annual reports, would eventually confirm that all three coal-mining entities were owned by the Guptas’ Oakbay Resources & Energy, and by extension Oakbay Investments.5 News that the Guptas, or at least their associates, had entered the industry would only surface in 2011, when the Sunday Times reported that Idwala Coal had started coal-mining activities near a sensitive wetland on the Vierfontein farm in Mpumalanga without the requisite water-use licence. Ravindra Nath, a director of several Gupta-owned companies and then chief financial officer of Sahara Computers, was named as an investor in Idwala Coal. Evidently sensitive about the mine’s links to the Guptas, Nath denied that they were involved but refused to say who exactly owned Idwala Coal. ‘I am just a silent investor in that [company]. The owner of the company is a BEE consortium and an overseas investor. It has nothing to do with the Gupta company [Oakbay],’ Nath told the newspaper.6

In the meantime, Idwala Coal continued to wreak havoc on the environment. In 2013, the Sunday Times reported on documents submitted to the Department of Environmental Affairs that shed light on the mine’s harmful activities. The sensitive wetland near the mine was damaged to such an extent that, according to the documents, ‘there exists the possibility that protected species were destroyed’. Idwala had also released ‘contaminated water’ into the ecosystem.7 Apart from a notice issued in 2011 by the then Department of Water Affairs over its continued mining activities without a water licence,8 the authorities seemed unwilling to act against Idwala. At one stage, the Department of Environmental Affairs stated that those involved in the illegal mining operation could face ‘administrative action or criminal prosecution’,9 but this never happened.

In 2014, the Mail & Guardian reported that Tegeta’s Brakfontein Colliery in Mpumalanga had also started mining coal illegally. Local farmers told the newspaper that polluted water from the mine was draining into an adjacent wetland before ending up in a nearby river. This time, the Department of Water Affairs issued a directive to the mine for ‘failing to take reasonable measures to prevent pollution and for using water without authorisation’.

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