AmaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism is an investigative journalism organisation focusing primarily on exposing political corruption in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

and neighbouring countries. They say that their name means “dung beetles” in

isiZulu Zulu (), or isiZulu as an endonym, is a Southern Bantu language of the Nguni branch spoken in Southern Africa. It is the language of the Zulu people, with about 12 million native speakers, who primarily inhabit the province of KwaZulu-Natal of ...

, one of the indigenous languages of South Africa. They claim they are “digging dung, fertilising democracy.” Their “#GuptaLeaks” investigations have produced many stories over the years that exposed substantive political corruption in the South African government, recognised by several prestigious awards for investigative journalism. These reports suggested that the

Gupta family The Gupta family is a wealthy Indian-born family with business interests in South Africa, whose most notable members are brothers Ajay, Atul, and Rajesh "Tony" Gupta—as well as Atul's nephews Varun, and US-based Ashish and Amol. The family ow ...

had ”captured the state” through their friendship with then-President Jacob Zuma and seem to have contributed to 2016 electoral defeats by the ANC in South Africa's largest cities, the defeat of Zuma as president of the

African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a social-democratic political party in South Africa. A liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid, it has governed the country since 1994, when the first post-apartheid election install ...

on 18 December 2017, and then to Zuma's resignation as head of state on 14 February 2018. They've also contributed to the

Paradise Papers The Paradise Papers are a set of over 13.4 million confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investments that were leaked to the German reporters Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer, from the newspaper'' Süddeutsch ...

exposé and many other reports relating to the South African political economy.

Budget

Their budget for two representative years is summarised in the following table.

Awards

The following include only a few of the awards presented to amaBhungane and members of their team: * 19 March 2018: “19 journalists from AmaBhungane, the

Daily Maverick ''Daily Maverick'' is a South African daily online publication and weekly print newspaper, with offices in Cape Town and Johannesburg. Its readership is spread across South Africa and the world, with approximately 8 million readers per month. I ...

and News24, won the 2017 Taco Kuiper Award for their excellent investigative journalism into the Gupta email leaks, also known as the #GuptaLeaks.” Taco Kuiper is reportedly South Africa's biggest investigative journalism award. * 16 November 2017: AmaBhungane shared the 2017 Vodacom Journalist of the Year Award in the financial / economic category with the Daily Maverick and News24 for the #GuptaLeaks series. * 28 June 2017: Susan Comrie and Craig McKune, investigators from AmaBhungane, won the 2016

Sanlam Sanlam is a South African financial services group headquartered in Bellville, Western Cape, South Africa. Sanlam is the largest insurance company in Africa. It is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, the Namibian Stock Exchange and the ...

Financial Journalist of the Year and Online Financial Journalist of the Year awards, respectively.

Notes

{{Reflist, 30em Investigative journalism Corruption in South Africa 2010 establishments in South Africa Non-profit organisations based in South Africa

Budget

Awards

See also

Notes