That payment is now well known, but what was not widely known was that Marsden had alerted the Hawks. If they had acted promptly they could have likely made arrests prior to the flood of Gupta corruption revelations.
Incredibly, he says, he was only contacted a week ago by a Hawks investigator wanting to interview him - after hearing almost nothing for more than a year.
There is little in Marsden's account to inspire any confidence in Police Minister Fikile Mbalula's assurances, or those from the Hawks, that the state capture scandal is being probed vigorously.
The lethargy of state agencies that should be acting is as criminal as the allegations they should be investigating and, in the final reckoning of this mess, they must also be called to account.
Editorial
Lethargy of state agencies is just plain criminal
South Africa's army of accomplices to crimes against our state grows by the day as those who are paid to be our look-outs and enforce the rule of law instead look the other way.
Various random items of news from Wednesday illustrate the point vividly. There were revelations from the auditor-general about state officials bullying his staff to look the other way on financial malfeasance and there was the quiet settling of disciplinary charges against civil servants accused of negligence in the Nkandla affair.
In the parliamentary hearings into Eskom we heard details on Wednesday of the Gupta-owned Tegeta's purchase ("theft" might be a more accurate description of the transaction) of the Optimum coal mine.
Among the most startling revelations was that from business rescue practitioner Piers Marsden. He said he had blown the whistle more than a year ago over a suspicious payment of R586-million to Tegeta by Eskom which allowed them to continue the Optimum takeover.
That payment is now well known, but what was not widely known was that Marsden had alerted the Hawks. If they had acted promptly they could have likely made arrests prior to the flood of Gupta corruption revelations.
Incredibly, he says, he was only contacted a week ago by a Hawks investigator wanting to interview him - after hearing almost nothing for more than a year.
There is little in Marsden's account to inspire any confidence in Police Minister Fikile Mbalula's assurances, or those from the Hawks, that the state capture scandal is being probed vigorously.
The lethargy of state agencies that should be acting is as criminal as the allegations they should be investigating and, in the final reckoning of this mess, they must also be called to account.