By Wallace Mawire
IMN – MOZAMBIQUE 13 July 2022 – Jacana is delighted to announce that we have signed Paul Holden to write the definitive summary of the Zondo Commission of Inquiry. The book, currently titled Zondo in a Nutshell, is slated for publication in April 2023.
As Director of Investigations at Shadow World Investigations, Holden is no stranger to the Zondo Commission. Across three sessions, Holden testified about the various money laundering networks used by the Gupta family and its associates to wash their state capture loot. Holden’s final report to the Commission included over 15 000 pages of evidence, where he meticulously detailed the almost R50 billion, which flowed from government entities to the Guptas’ international money laundering apparatus.
Holden, who has previously demystified the notorious arms deal in The Arms Deal in Your Pocket (2009), will make the Commission’s findings accessible to the layperson, cutting out legal jargon and presenting the essence of the Commission’s extensive findings.
Holden believes that understanding South Africa’s recent history, and thinking about its uncertain future, requires engaging with the Zondo Commission’s extensive work. The Zondo Commission provided a blow-by-blow account of a decade of rampant corruption at the highest level and has made recommendations for the creation of new institutions and reformations of old ones. South Africa’s government would look radically different if the Commission’s recommendations are enacted.
Paul Holden is a South African-born investigative researcher and writer and is Director of Investigations at Shadow World Investigations (www.shadowworldinvestigations.org). He has written five books to date, including four books on South African politics and economics. Two of Holden’s books were national bestsellers in South Africa. Holden is a Network Fellow at the Safra Centre for Ethics at Harvard University. Alongside his colleagues Andrew Feinstein and Hennie van Vuuren, Holden was named Corruption Watch’s ‘Corruption Hero of the Year’ in 2014.
Holden has trained over a thousand international journalists and activists in investigative methodologies and has provided the same training to law enforcement and statutory agencies around the world. He has appeared widely as a commentator on local and international media outlets, including the BBC World Service and the Guardian (UK).
