Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo has indicated that he is likely to narrow the scope of his inquiry into state capture – and the officials and politicians implicated in the VBS Mutual Bank scandal may be the biggest beneficiaries of that decision.

That’s because Zondo’s plan to scale back his commission’s investigations, so that they focus on issues within the limits defined by former public protector Thuli Madonsela in her State of Capture report, will result in the possible exclusion of the looting of VBS from the topics that the Inquiry investigates.

It is still possible that Zondo may decide to pursue the VBS probe, as he has left open the possibility of completing investigations into “any other issues that may fall outside [Madonsela’s list] but within the commission’s terms of reference that I consider appropriate to be dealt with by the commission”...