The final part of a mammoth report into alleged corruption in South Africa under former President Jacob Zuma has been handed to his successor, Cyril Ramaphosa.
The report, by Judge Raymond Zondo, was more than 5,000 pages long.
It painted a picture of a country whose coffers were looted by its former president and his associates – the prominent Gupta brothers.
It also accused him of halting an investigation into alleged financial misdeeds by the Guptas. Both (Mr Zuma and the Gupta brothers) denied wrongdoing.
The Guptas’ influence on the hiring and firing of government ministers had also been laid bare by the report.
It found that Mr Zuma enabled, indirectly, the Gupta family members to occupy a place of prominence to the detriment of the country.
The South African authorities were currently working on having the Gupta brothers extradited from the United Arab Emirates to answer to their alleged crimes.
The commission’s chairman has also recommended that election rules be amended to allow for South Africans to directly elect a president instead of using the party system.
This, he said, will prevent the country from having another leader as Mr Zuma.
Mr Ramaphosa must now decide whether further legal action should be taken against his predecessor.
South Africa’s former President, Jacob Zuma, has been accused of having a corrupt relationship with members of the Indian-born Gupta family, and even letting them interfere in ministerial appointments.
Although both Mr Zuma and the Guptas have denied any wrongdoing, these allegations were one of thereasons people wanted him to resign.
So who were the Guptas and how close were their links to President Zuma?
Brothers Ajay, Atul and Rajesh (also known as Tony) Gupta, all in their 40s, relocated to South Africa from India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh in Saharanpur in 1993, just when white minority rule was ending and the country was opening up to the rest of the world.
Family spokesman, Haranath Ghosh, told the BBC by email that their father, Shiv Kumar Gupta, sent Atul to South Africa, believing that Africa was about to become the “America of the world” – the world’s land of opportunity. -BBC
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