Amid all the rotten news of the past week - former Eskom CEO Brian Molefe and current Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown making a mockery of the truth in testimony to a parliamentary inquiry into state capture at Eskom; Zimbabwean authorities roughing up the families and staff of ministers in a defeated Robert Mugabe's cabinet as his successor, Emmerson Mnangagwa, was being inaugurated; and signs that Cyril Ramaphosa's campaign for the ANC presidency next month might be faltering - something wonderful happened.
It was a sign that even in an administration as mouldy as President Jacob Zuma's, decency and integrity still exist; that honest public servants still exist. We instinctively know that, but it is good to be reminded.
I'm not talking about the wonderful MPs on the public enterprises select committee who exposed Molefe and Brown for the charlatans they have become, although it made for riveting viewing. And with plans to subpoena the Gupta brothers and possibly Zuma himself and his son, Gupta lieutenant Duduzane Zuma, it can only get better.What blew me away was news that the Industrial Development Corporation, the state-owned funder, was going to sue the Guptas for nearly R300-million after they blatantly, deliberately, typically, misled it.
The guy on whose shoulders this falls is Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel. The IDC reports to him and the decision to sue is the first concrete action taken against the Guptas (and, by implication, Zuma's son) by a cabinet minister. It is brave and principled and we should all applaud it.
I have been rude about Patel in the past. But when you watch people lying in parliament, you get a better appreciation for how valuable principle is. My argument with Patel was always about policy. I thought his New Growth Path was weak. But it was clear and written down and detailed. You could take it on and he could defend it.
That's healthy. People who lie and are corrupt shut down all conversation. They don't care what you think. They're busy stealing. What's the point of challenging policy when it exists only as a shroud for theft?
Back in 2009, Patel, a veteran union organiser and leader, was the very last name Zuma added to his cabinet. He carved off some of the Department of Trade and Industry and gave it to him as a sort of gift to the SACP and Cosatu.Since then Patel has been one of the straight ethical arrows in the Zuma administration, and I suspect that when the Guptas, through their holding company in South Africa, Oakbay, approached the IDC for finance to buy what is now the Shiva uranium mine, neither he nor the IDC management had any idea of the calibre of people they were dealing with.
Shiva was (is) a dog of a business, despite the IDC sinking R250-million in loan finance into it. When the Guptas decided to list Oakbay in 2014, the IDC was persuaded to convert its Shiva loan into equity, giving it a share in Oakbay Resources.
It never looked right. And as it turns out, it wasn't. The Guptas' problem was how to value the IDC stake. The more it was worth, the bigger slice of the loan it would eat up. The listing share price would, reports Business Day, determine "how much equity would be needed to pay off the IDC loan".
But Oakbay was a dog, too, and the trove of leaked state capture e-mails shows that the Guptas paid associates in Singapore a million dollars to buy Oakbay shares at an artificially high price, giving the company a market value of R8-billion at listing, which it was never worth.
Patel hasn't bothered with stupid debates about whether the e-mails are authentic. Of course they are. He has acted on them and, trust me, you wouldn't want the IDC on your case, chasing R300-million. It is a rich and well-run organisation. I doubt the Guptas could survive successful pursuit of the IDC's case.They don't have R300-million left in South Africa. Patel may have to sequestrate them.
And Patel himself, gentle and soft-spoken, is a terrier. He has squeezed billions out of big multinationals buying up assets in South Africa and he won't be easily cowed, no matter who tries.
All of which is cheerful news. It is another nail in the coffin. Even as Molefe and Brown tried to brazen their way past parliament last week, you could sense their spirits sagging. State capture is failing. What do they say about evil, and good men doing nothing? The nightmare will soon end...