The Public Investment Corporation (PIC) commission of inquiry will now turn its attention to the detailed and exacting task of processing thousands of pages of testimony and evidence into a comprehensive report ready for the consideration of the president, after the bulk of the hearings were completed on Wednesday.
Former PIC CEO Dan Matjila's lengthy and gruelling time in the hot seat finally came to an end on Monday after three weeks of testimony.
Following brief appearances by the chair of the Lancaster Group, Jayendra Naidoo, and former PIC director Sibusisiwe Zulu, the hearings are now substantially complete.
The conclusion has not been without controversy. Business Times is aware of at least one businessman, Kholofelo Maponya, who has been heavily implicated in testimony before the commission but says he has not been provided an opportunity to testify (and then cross-examine other witnesses) as the terms allow.
"I have not been given a date to come and testify despite providing my statement early last month. The abuse is continuing. So, I don't know what the PIC commission is about. I have the impression there was a preconceived notion I am the villain," said Maponya.
The commissioner's evidence leader, advocate Jannie Lubbe, said he spoke to Maponya on Wednesday and informed him that his request to appear before the commission would be submitted to the commissioner, and that he would "assist him as far as I can to appear before the commission in September".
A number of senior politicians and people with links to the ANC have also not been called to account for their role in controversies ranging from asking the PIC to donate funds to the party to the involvement of a number of politically exposed people in questionable transactions.
But these aside, the commission now has two and a half months to work through the transcripts and thousands of pages of documentary evidence submitted by witnesses (which the media has not had sight of) as well as complete the forensic investigation that a commission spokesperson told Business Times "is at different stages of completion".
"It is now our task to review, assess, make findings, propose recommendations and prepare our final report in keeping with these terms of reference," commissioner Lex Mpati said at the conclusion of hearings on Wednesday afternoon, though he did keep the door open for "further limited public hearings" if required.
A sign of how far the investigations have to go is the state of a probe into one of the more disastrous and controversial investments made by the PIC, in Camac Energy.
Camac, which was founded and run by US business person Kase Lawal, was introduced to Matjila by Sizwe Shezi, the chair of the Jacob Zuma Education Trust at the time the investment was made.
Despite a $270m investment by the PIC and a further $63m it had to pay to honour a bank guarantee it provided to the company's lenders (for a combined loss of over R4.3bn), all appears to be lost as Camac, which renamed itself Erin Energy, filed for bankruptcy in the US last year.
The commission told Business Times Lawal had not yet been contacted "because the forensic team is still busy with the investigation". The investigation was delayed by the fact that the PIC initially could not find any documents to supply the commission with, but this has since been remedied.
Some long overdue corporate renewal and restructuring of the PIC may have already resulted from the commission.
In a decision that may anger some of his strongest supporters, including the likes of Cosatu, President Cyril Ramaphosa allowed for the first non-political chair to be appointed by the PIC’s board of directors last month with the election of Reuel Khoza as chair of the PIC.
This could be construed as a sign that the ANC intends to exercise less political influence over the state-owned asset manager, opting to corporatise the institution to the full extent as is theoretically the case with SA's other large state-owned enterprises.
The PIC appears not to be standing still either, and has begun considering ways to reform its structure, including breaking the behemoth into separate functional units based on the type of investments being managed.
In other aspects, legal action has already overtaken some of the more controversial deals that have been described over the past eight months of testimony.
In respect of the Ayo transaction, the PIC is preparing a range of sanctions for 11 current employees who were involved in approving the investment.
The PIC also instituted separate legal action in May to recover the R4.3bn it invested in the company Iqbal Survé indirectly controls after a number of irregularities were described in testimony at the inquiry.
Ayo is defending the claim and, in court papers it filed this month, says the mess surrounding the investment was all of the PIC's making.
It is not yet clear whether the president will make the final report public.
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