Author Paul Holden unpacks salient issues in the Zondo Commission report in new hilarious book

You will meet several characters and their sports bags that did not carry sporting gear, but R200 notes stashed nicely. Ready for the boot of the car. Not the sporting field.

By Edward Tsumele, CITYLIFE/ARTS Editor

When last week, Tuesday, June 6, 2023, I got an invitation on short notice, for an exclusive breakfast briefing by author and financial fraud investigator, Paul Holden, I had to reschedule my diary. After all, this is the one guy that many a financial fraudster is or should be afraid of. Not only in South Africa but globally as he follows the trail of financial mischief by global mobsters who defraud especially the public purse through their shenanigans. 

If I were one of them, I would really fear this man, perhaps even more than law enforcement agencies simply because fraudsters often get away with it, because governments often lack the expertise or resources to successfully, for example, examine complex financial records to get to the bottom of a complex fraud case.

If you doubt my assessment of Paul Holden’s experience and expertise in tracing dirty money flaws through scrutinising the financial records held by financial institutions belonging to money launderers’ complex system they set up, often in cahoots with other criminals to hide their loot, ask those that were fingered at recent two high profile probes in South Africa.

Holden’s expertise in unearthing hidden financial records proved to be instrumental, especially in the Zondo Commission of Inquiry where he was called as a witness and his testimony was probably the most damning when it came to expose the mischief and of course the complex issue of the whole State Capture saga by the Guptas and their associates in crime in South Africa, particularly in State owned Enterprises.

Sate owned companies such as Eskom, Transnet and the South African Revenue Services were the nerve centres where the theatre of the absurd took place. The Zondo Commission relied pretty much a lot on tangible evidence presented to it for wrong doing by the Gupta Brothers and their associates in these state companies to reach the daming conclusions it did implicating the thieves. And what better way of exposing these wrong doings than through presenting irrefutable evidence through the financial records of the culprits.

The reason though Holden was with us at Mike’s Kitchen Heritage House in Parktown, is that he is being hosted in South Africa by his publisher Jacana Media as he is currently in the country, from his London base, where he is the chief investigator at an international Non-Governmental Organisation chasing financial crooks throughout the world, is that he is hosting a series of book launches of his latest book titled Zondo at Your Finger Tips: The Definitive Guide to The Zondo Report. Now If, by now you think you know every detail about what transpired at the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into State Capture, think again.

Adding this book to your shelf, not only will it allow you to get the meat out of the bones of the intricate issues ventilated at the Commission, such as who did what, how and whow assisted whom, and to what extent and why, but will mean that when the history of corruption in South Africa is revisited in future, you will be having a reliable-and-easy to understand resource as far as that issue is concerned.

Though in the book, Holden restricts himself to the final report that Justice Raymond Zondo and his team produced, he assists the reader to unpack the salient points of this report, from a maze of information that could easily get a reader lost If, they went straight delving into the Commission final report itself.

In any case, Holden was responsible for providing a substantial amount of evidence some of which resulted in the commission fingering the crooks that it does in its report. But in Zondo at Your Finger Tips: The Definitive Guide to The Zondo Report, the author not only explains the legal framework in which alleged wrong doing is implied, but he also tells interesting stories of the various characters implicated by the commission for wrong doing.

This is about who and how he committed these misdeeds, If you know what I mean. These are stories that read like they are straight from a crime thriller of the fiction genre. But sadly these stories are real, committed by people we know, and some of whom may have affected our lives directly by their illegal actions and greed, especially where there it involves service delivery provided by those public entities they plundered for personal benefit.

The book will make you angry with some of these characters that have been fingered and are currently loud, trying to defend themselves in public, and yet they could not successfully defend themselves where it mattered –during the Zondo Commission of Inquiry. But they do these public relations exercises because they want to confuse you and I, and make us believe that they are innocent.

In fact reading this book, will make you laugh each time you see some of these characters on TV or being quoted in newspapers pleading their innocence. Yes, being implicated in the Zondo Commission of Inquiry does not in itself, mean that someone is guilty. There is that small matter of the commission not being a court of Law. But reading this book, weighing what the author pulled out from the final report, I would say it would be very hard for some of these characters to prove their innocence. Even in a court of law proper.

Well, going through the chapters of this book, whose themselves are systematically arranged, ventilated and analysed, I personally felt that I can no longer look some of these individuals in the eye and doubt their culpability in the damage to the economy through the State capture saga.

“The book is not a summary of the report, but, I would suggest, I have condensed and put context to some of the issues contained in the report and its findings,” Holden old us during breakfast.

Having access to records of criminals involved in stilling billions of Rands, by its very nature, potentially poses a personal security risk to such a person, especially in a country with such a high criminal rate as South Africa.

I posed the question to Holden as to whether he has felt afraid or has been threatened.

“No. Not during this investigation of the Zondo Commission. But the arms deal investigation was different.” He said. He went on to talk about chilling incidents that happened during the Serit Commission of Inquiry into the arms deal dating back to the 90s. However here, I cannot reveal the details of the incidents as he said them off record. Holden though was so calm and his modest demeanour did not suggest that he is the one guy financial criminals in the country should fear the most-because of the financial records of their illicit activities that he may, or may not have in his possession.

In the meantime, go and get Zondo at Your Finger Tips: The Definitive Guide to The Zondo Report. It will make you angry of course. But also it will drive you to laugh at some of the stories involving the criminals characters fingered by the Zondo Commission. But most importantly, the book will make you wiser and more informed when it comes to the issues ventilated by the commission.

For me I even at times felt entertained by some of the sily things the characters did during their shenanigans of stealing from the public purse.  For example, you will meet several characters and their sports bags that did not carry sporting gear, but R200 notes stashed nicely. Ready for the boot of the car. Not the sporting field.

Paul Holden is currently in South Africa to promote his book from Monday, 5 June to Thursday, 15 June. In Johannesburg from Monday, 5 June to Friday, 9 June. In Cape Town from Friday, 9 June to Wednesday, 14 June. Let me know if you would like to schedule an interview with Paul.