The corruption case against former president Jacob Zuma and French arms company Thales has been postponed for a further three months to allow the defence teams to make applications for a permanent stay of prosecution.

Duduzane Zuma appeared in the Randburg magistrates court this week to answer for charges related to a 2014 car accident that resulted in the death of a young woman. Phumzile Dube died instantly after Zuma’s Porsche crashed into a minibus taxi on M1 in Johannesburg in February 2014. But Duduzane, the son of former president Jacob Zuma, has other legal problems on his plate, as Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) reports.

Remember the Scorpions? The elite crime busting unit that roped in R4bn in corrupt proceeds in the last year of its operation, before it was dismantled by Jacob Zuma and replaced by the Hawks. The Hawks, by contrast, seized just R35m in its first year in operation, and the number of cases being investigated dropped 85%. Paul Hoffman of Accountability Now, writing in Daily Maverick, explores how to turn this ship of failure around. 

The bad news is that capture of state-owned companies (SOCs) has cost the taxpayer billions of rands, which have been siphoned off into the pockets of crooks and corrupt officials. The good news is that Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan is back on the job and is cleaning out the boards of these companies to make sure the culture of graft is deracinated. Daily Maverick looks at the latest developments.

Durban businessman Ian Brakspear's company was liquidated by Nedbank over a R7m loan he says he neither asked for nor received. He was put through nearly a decade of hell, including a 2 week trial in Durban, as the bank's legal representatives painted him as mendacious and delusional. He lost his case, then his mother Dorothy brought a case before the Jersey court asking for evidence of these supposed payments sent and received. The bank was forced to hand over its so-called Bankers Book - nothing, nada, zilch. No evidence of the payments anywhere in sight. If you listen closely, you can almost hear the sound of guillotines being hoisted at Nedbank's head office in Joburg. Martin Welz of Noseweek looks into the story.

AfriForum is throwing the book at EFF leader Julius Malema, with multiple private prosecutions being brought against him. The latest private prosecution relates to fraud and tender corruption involving Limpopo company On-Point Engineering. AfriForum advocate Gerri Nel - who famously prosecuted SA Olympic blade runner Oscar Pistorius for the shooting of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp - has attacked the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) for failing to take forward numerous cases against Malema. Malema, in response, challenged the "white racists" to bring it on, and said the prosecutions were to divert attention away from his call for land expropriation.

Grace Mugabe, wife of the deposed Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe, has complained to the police that vandals had invaded one of the farms she "owns" in the Mazoe district of Zimbabwe. Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) parliamentarian Eddie Cross was so moved by this outrage that he penned this open letter to her, asking what it is like to be at the receiving end of the cruelty she meted out to ordinary Zimbabweans and farmers. Here is a rather decent though probably incomplete catalogue of her crimes.

Former Reserve Bank employee and now senior economist at Efficient Group, Dawie Roodt, says there are 170 billion good reasons why the state would want to get its hands on the assets of the Reserve Bank, says Moneyweb.

Ian Brakspear of Durban has been fighting his case against Nedbank for the better part of a decade. It all started when the bank foreclosed on a R7m loan he says he neither asked for nor received. A bizarre court case in Durban found in favour of the bank. Now Brakspear's mother has taken the case to the Jersey courts in search of justice. The Bailiwick Express reports on the latest developments.

A scandal involving Bank of Baroda’s South Africa operations, a cabal of businessmen of Indian origin, and South African President Jacob Zuma, has undermined the reputation of India’s second largest bank and resulted in an unprecedented penalty by the South African Reserve Bank.

A sensational preservation order granted this week against Gupta-owned companies has exposed a grand conspiracy by the family to steal money from the state with help from senior politicians and government officials.

The Asset Forfeiture Unit, part of the National Prosecuting Authority, is preparing to make a move against the Gupta family and has its sights set on assets worth R1,6bn. This is the first time the state has taken action against President Jacob Zuma's friends, says City Press.

Eskom relied on a lawyer's report to exonerate itself from wrong-doing over payment of R500-million to Trillian Capital, despite having no valid agreement with the Gupta-linked company, says Timeslive.

Eskom spokesperson Khulani Qoma laid into public enterprises minister Lynn Brown yesterday, saying "she lies all the time." What is she supposedly lying about? Well, just about everything, including the influence of the Guptas in making Eskom board appointments, to the true financial health of the state-owned electricity provider. Brown hit back with a few jabs of her own, calling the parliamentary inquiry into state capture a "kangaroo court".

Jacques Pauw's new book The President's Keepers has lit up the country, with PDF versions making the rounds in case the state tries to ban the book. As well they might. It details how President Zuma avoided filing tax returns before and during his presidency, because to do so would illuminate that he was a fatally compromised man. He was and is, in fact, a kept man, receiving payments for his upkeep from some truly dodgy characters. Then, of course, Pauw details how the intelligence and other organs of government have been captured and looted.

The Sunday Times reported on the weekend that a Russian delegation had slipped into SA from Mozambique to coerce President Jacob Zuma in appointing David Mahlobo as energy minister last week to be the Russians' "eyes and ears" and to push through a costly nuclear deal through parliament. 

The inevitable passage of time, and the relative absence of key witnesses, means President Jacob Zuma may never face a successful prosecution, says City Press.

The Guptas might be on the back foot, but the project to capture the state is proceeding apace. Over the past few weeks, the looters have been emboldened again.

The fall-out from the Guptas continues. The curse of the Guptas has already sent a cruise missile through the hull of UK PR firm Bell Pottinger, which marketed the divisive "White minority capital" and other slogans in service of the Guptas' agenda. Now the axe has fallen at KPMG, one of the world's largest and most prestigious audit firms. KPMG, in an effort to stem the exodus of clients (which include Sasfin and energy group Hulisani), fired most of its executive team last week for dodgy work it did for the Guptas, and SA Revenue Services. Now one of the premier consulting firms in the world, McKinsey, is under fire. The Democratic Alliance says it will lay charges of fraud and racketeering against the firm over its suspect dealings with the Guptas.

The following is an open letter by human rights activist Justin Lewis to Lord Peter Hain, a prominent anti-apartheid activist who fled SA in the 1960s, urging him to rein in PR firms such as Bell Pottinger interfering in the political affairs of a friendly nation. Lewis has asked Lord Hain to bring the matter to the attention of the UK Parliament.

UK-based public relations firm Bell Pottinger could be up for sale as its owners explore "all options" to salvage the floundering business.This follows the earlier dismissal of the account executive who handled the Gupta account and the departure of the company’s CEO and significant shareholder James Henderson, neither of which appears to have stemmed the bleeding.

It continues to confound South Africans that the Guptas remain relatively untouched by the long hand of the law. Perhaps this will change after Democratic Alliance leader Mmusi Maimane handed over a dossier detailing how the Guptas and a number of their associates allegedly stole R200m from some 80 community members to pay for a Gupta wedding at Sun City in 2013. Is anyone at the Hawks paying attention?

Mark Pamensky, who doubled as an Eskom director while serving on the boards of various Gupta family-owned businesses, has had corruption charges laid against him based on leaked e-mails he sent to the brothers and their associates.

An explosive criminal docket opened last week by Sarah-Jane Trent of Forensics for Justice - spearheaded by forensic investigator Paul O'Sullivan - spills the beans on just how deep the corruption in SA runs. It claims the intelligence services are being used to hound political enemies, while the Criminal Justice System is being used to pursue witch-hunts intended to silence those exposing corruption.

Fears that the South African Revenue Service (SARS) had fallen prey to state capture were heightened after its chief financial officer of nearly three years abruptly resigned this week.