Home Affairs is a key player in the sorry saga of state capture

The Times has reported how then Home Affairs minister Malusi Gigaba's adviser Thamsanqa Msomi emerged from the Gupta e-mails as a fixer for the Gupta family. The e-mails show how he helped them organise visas for associates and family and how one of their key employees was kept in the loop on internal departmental happenings.

Yesterday, our sister publication, the Sunday Times, went further, describing how the Gupta family apparently had access, allegedly from Home Affairs, to details of the movements of the CEOs of South Africa's top banks.

Today we report on further links to the Guptas and another Gigaba adviser, Siyabonga Mahlangu, who appears to have held regular meetings at the family's Saxonwold home. He also, the e-mails show, travelled to India for 10 days with President Jacob Zuma's son and Gupta business associate Duduzane Zuma.

We have previously pointed to the central role that Gigaba appears to have played in the mechanics of state capture. As public enterprises minister he was instrumental in appointing a basket of Gupta associates to important state-owned entity boards. The links of his close advisers to the Guptas and their associates continues that narrative.

And Gigaba's own hands are soiled by his early approval of citizenship to the
Gupta family, which he is still to adequately explain.

Answers and consequences are needed.

Parliament's instruction a week ago to four oversight committees - including Home Affairs - to investigate these and other state capture claims is a step in the right direction.