If there was anyone out there who still thinks "state capture" is not a reality in South African public life, this week's hearings in parliament held by a committee investigating Eskom would have dispelled those doubts.
And this time, President Jacob Zuma himself had a starring role, alongside the usual cast of ministers in denial and the ubiquitous Gupta family. Oh, and when Zuma joins this rotten ensemble, can the failed chairwoman of SAA, Dudu Myeni, be far behind?
Former Eskom chairman Zola Tsotsi's testimony outlined the by-now customary storyline: clandestine meetings, late-night phone calls, lists of people being appointed to, and fired from, top positions and, of course, wall-to-wall Gupta family members.
Now add to this explosive mix, for the first time, Zuma himself, taking time off from his duties as head of state to concern himself with the names of Eskom board members.
Obviously, too, one was treated to the usual torrent of denials, on this occasion from Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown, who cut a sorry figure at the hearings.
It should go without saying that Brown denied Tsotsi's testimony that she invited him to her home in December 2014, and that Gupta associate Salim Essa and Tony Gupta were there, too, and they discussed the allocation of board members to different subcommittees. Brown was all denial, and obviously denied any knowledge of a meeting that would strongly suggest the Guptas were pulling the strings at Eskom.
In this case, Brown embellished her denial by saying: "In fact, I really deny that," presumably to distinguish this "special" denial from the stock denials she seems to carry with her, ready for all occasions. And just in case you didn't get it the first time, she added: "Zola Tsotsi must please tell me on which day he says, so that I actually can verify it. But at this stage I don't know that Tony Gupta and Salim Essa came to my house." At this stage?
As if Brown's denials were not bad enough, her extremely narrow view of her role at state enterprises in general, and Eskom in particular, is of concern, and perhaps goes some way towards explaining why our state-owned enterprises are in the mess they are.
Brown is a stickler for the minutiae of laws on Eskom: not interfering here, staying out of it there. By her account, she has no more power over the utility than a gardener at its Megawatt Park estate in northern Joburg. She doesn't interfere - or hardly ever, except, according to Tsotsi, when a Gupta interest is at play. This, too, she denies.
Consider: would Tsotsi really try to save his own skin by falsely implicating no less than the president in this unseemly scramble for public loot? But there he was, telling how he was called to a meeting in Durban, where he was told by Myeni that three people (a fourth was added later) were to be removed from the Eskom board. Enter Zuma, who repeated the names of the victims - this from a man who has never shown he is that willing to grasp the details of governance.
And Brown's response to this bizarre encounter in Durban? She's miffed that Tsotsi failed to tell her about it.
But wait - help is on the way. According to Brown the Hawks have set up a special unit, while the Special Investigating Unit investigation she has asked for is "imminent".
Don't hold your breath: indeed, by the time these "specialist" agencies of law and order have sprung into action, the MPs in parliament will have got to the bottom of it.
And in doing so, there will be no special thanks to our new State Security Minister Bongani Bongo, who, as we report in more detail this week, allegedly attempted to bribe evidence leader Ntuthuzelo Vanara to frustrate the inquiry - after having been part of a delegation to Luthuli House to try to stop the probe in its tracks.
Bongo? Is he also involved in the Gupta capture of Eskom? If not, just whose interests could he have been serving? Surely not the interests of the man who appointed him to the cabinet, Zuma? Does one laugh or cry at this stage? Or both?
