The African National Congress is expected to brief the media on Monday on whether President Jacob Zuma survived another round of claims that his son’s business partners, the Guptas, are involved in ministerial appointments.
The party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) met between Friday and Sunday at the St George’s Hotel on the outskirts of the capital Pretoria as three separate media exposes made claims against the Treasury, Zuma, and key government ministers.
City Press reported that a series of leaked emails purportedly show a draft of an email by Zuma’s son Duduzane asking that the Arab Emirates support his plan to set up a second family home there.
The president’s main personal residence is currently in Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal, fortified by R249 million worth of security retrofits paid for by taxpayers.
He repaid R7.9m for a portion of the security upgrade after a drawn out controversy over the expenditure on non-security items such as a cattle fence and a swimming pool.
The Sunday Times reportedly provides the ”smoking gun” needed to prove that the directors of Oakbay Investments, who include business people Atul, Ajay and Tony Gupta, were sent Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane’s CV before he was appointed, and picked up the tab for some ministers’ overseas trips.
The majority party’s NEC also reportedly discussed a second proposal that Zuma leave as the party’s head, to make way for a new leader after a similar proposal in December did not take root.
In the meantime, the presidency has denied that Zuma has plans to decamp to the UAE.
On Friday night, Oakbay-owned news channel ANN7 presented a blow-by-blow account of how the Treasury, under ousted finance minister Pravin Gordhan, allegedly turned a blind eye to unauthorised payments and double invoicing.
The also-fired deputy Mcebisi Jonas has alleged that he was offered R600 000 by the Guptas to take over from Gordhan as Finance Minister.
[Source: news24]
