The President's Keepers. Jacques Pauw

vital functions at South Africa's most crucial state institution but they rejected the leadership of Tom Moyane, a Zuma choirboy whose highest previous job in government was that of prisons boss.

      “Dissident” politicians like former finance ministers Pravin Gordhan and Nhlanhla Nene, deputy finance minister Mcebisi Jonas, former tourism minister Derek Hanekom and former mining minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi were also axed for discharging false notes in the Zuma choir.

      Business Day reminded us that by the end of March 2017, Zuma had made 11 cabinet reshuffles since coming to power in May 2009. He has made 126 changes to the national executive: 62 changes to ministerial positions, 63 changes to deputy ministerial positions, and one change to the deputy presidency. After his reshuffle in March 2017, the national executive (ministers and deputy ministers) stood at a bloated 74 people.

      In getting rid of “troublemakers”, Zuma and his keepers gutted the country's most crucial institutions by not just getting rid of top-level civil servants, but replacing them with hand-picked acting successors and low-level ANC apparatchiks who were in most cases nothing but lame ducks and weaklings.

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      The one institution that was untouched during Zuma's first term in office was the South African Revenue Service (SARS), the crown jewel in the civil service. Year after year, it didn't just meet its targets, it surpassed them, enabling government to pay social grants to millions upon millions of poor people. SARS was hailed internationally, and its systems were studied by business schools over the world.

      Long before I set out to write this book, it was revealed how the top structure of SARS – comprising Ivan Pillay, Gene Ravele, Johann van Loggerenberg, Pete Picher – was purged after a series of articles in the Sunday Times that they had run a “rogue unit”. The stories were fabrications but nonetheless saw the rise of Zuma acolyte Tom Moyane as the hatchet man who rid SARS of its tried and tested top executives.

      Van Loggerenberg wrote a book, Rogue: The Inside Story of SARS's Elite Crime-Busting Unit, in which he chronicled how his affair with a Pretoria attorney became the trigger for the “capture” of SARS and the departure of its experienced and independent-thinking officials.

      What I discovered in my research for this book adds another, untold layer to the SARS narrative. I gave a handful of friends the chapters on SARS to read before publication. It left them devastated and disillusioned, and they agreed that they had never imagined the Zuma regime would descend to these lows to preserve its survival.