Gigaba adviser the Gupta ‘fixer’
• E-mails reveal Thamsanqa Msomi was asked for visa assistance for clients, confirming his links to the family
Denel board member and adviser to Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba‚ Thamsanqa Msomi‚ has emerged as the fixer for Gupta family associates in the Department of Home Affairs‚ documents show.
A leaked e-mail trail revealed how the Guptas’ “man on the inside”‚ Msomi‚ received e-mails from Gupta family associates asking for assistance for visas for “clients”‚ confirming longstanding speculation over his alleged links to the family.
Msomi was Gigaba’s chief of staff while he was public enterprises minister‚ later becoming his legal adviser while Gigaba was home affairs minister and was then appointed to the board of Denel in 2015.
The Treasury is locked in a court dispute with Denel over the setting up of Denel Asia, a joint venture between the firm and a Gupta-linked company.
When Msomi was in Home Affairs, he instructed junior officials in the department to assist Gupta-owned Sahara CEO Ashu Chawla to do the Guptas’ bidding, the paper trail showed.
The leaked e-mails showed how a director in the department was made to liaise with embassy officials on Chawla’s behalf as well as keep him informed of private happenings in the department. Chawla received assistance on anything from getting visas fast-tracked irregularly‚ to having the minister allegedly replace an official standing in their way in a consulate office in Mumbai.
A junior official, whose identity is known to Business Day‚ revealed that the assistance he provided Gupta associates was on instructions that “came from the top”. When pressed‚ he said he had helped the Gupta family and its associates at the behest of Msomi.
The e-mails paint a picture of how the rules of the department were repeatedly flouted for the Gupta family and their business interests and when an official in the Mumbai consulate tried to implement the rules‚ there was an attempt to remove him.
This move caused controversy in the department’s human resources office, but was said to have been “approved by the minister”.
Mayihlome Tshwete‚ Gigaba’s spokesman‚ denied on Tuesday that the minister had anything to do with it. He did not respond in detail by the time of publication as promised.
“I don’t know what is meant by regular‚” Msomi said in response to questions asking how often he had been in contact with Chawla.
“But yes if he [Chawla] had issues that were Home Affairs related, he would call at times or e-mail. In respect of others he would communicate with the department directly‚” Msomi said‚ saying he received requests for assistance from other people all the time‚ even now that he had left Home Affairs.
But e-mails show he was forwarded an e-mail that was originally sent to Tony Gupta from a Durban attorney asking for assistance with a client’s visa. The same e-mail was then forwarded to Msomi by Chawla‚ on the same day‚ January 16 2016. Msomi responded less than 10 minutes later‚ confirming receipt. “Evening my brother. Your e-mail was received please ask the attorney to provide more details on the matter‚” he wrote.
He said once an issue had been referred to the ministry‚ the “attitude is that it should be resolved because it is the last resort for our clients”.
“So yes the [my] willingness to assist originates from this attitude not because of familiarity. Actually familiarity is not a prerequisite‚” Msomi said on Tuesday. “I won’t really remember the number of occasions or times he called asking for help because people would at times call more than 20 times about the same matter. I was not communicating or exchanging e-mails with him because of his association with the Gupta family but because he was requesting to be assisted with Home Affairs services.”