Nene to tell about his sit-ins with Guptas
• Finance minister is due to testify at the Zondo commission into state capture on Wednesday
Finance minister Nhlanhla Nene held several meetings with the Guptas during his first term, and prior to that when he was deputy minister, where they demanded his intervention to get them in on the Public Investment Corporation’s (PIC) deal that funded Iqbal Survé’s takeover of Independent News and Media group.
Nene — whose firing and replacement by the relatively unknown Des van Rooyen in December 2015 was one of the most notorious episodes of the Jacob Zuma presidency — will for the first time own up to his interactions with the Guptas.
The family and friends of Zuma and his son’s business partners have been at the centre of state capture allegations and stand accused of using their connections with the former president to channel state resources to their businesses.
Nene is due to testify at the Zondo commission into state capture on Wednesday.
It is understood that the Guptas summoned Nene to a number of meetings when he was deputy minister of finance and chair of the PIC after Survé’s Sekunjalo Investment Holdings rebuffed their attempts to buy a stake in the publisher of the Star newspaper.
In February 2013 the Sekunjalo group won the bid to buy Independent Media from its Irish owners for R2bn, some of which Survé raised from the PIC, Africa’s largest asset manager, which oversees about R2-trillion, mainly on behalf of government workers.
Initial discussions between Survé and the Guptas led them to believe that they would have a stake in the deal. However, Survé said he could not include them because the PIC objected to changes in the shareholding.
The Guptas then repeatedly met with Nene, trying to convince him to put pressure on the PIC. Nene appears not to have acceded to their requests because the matter was still hanging after the 2014 elections, when he became minister of finance. It is believed the Guptas held at least two meetings on the issue with Nene, while he was finance minister. Nene has
kept silent on this matter, even after he was fired by Zuma.
According to sources at the Treasury, Nene did not confide in his colleagues or officials about the Gupta meetings.
During the presidency budget vote earlier in 2018, EFF leader Julius Malema claimed Nene was “corrupt as hell”, questioning whether he had met with dubious business people and had intervened on their behalf. Nene did not respond to Malema’s allegations at the time, but will have to come clean about his interactions with the Guptas following allegations about his impropriety at the PIC arising on the eve of his appearance at the Zondo commission.
A text message, purporting to be details of a story to be published by investigative unit amaBhungane, claims Nene’s son Siya’s oil company acquired funding from the PIC during the period he was chair.
It also claims Nene is linked to the Guptas and “instrumental in funding many of their business deals”.
AmaBhungane editors Stefaans Brummer and Sam Sole said on Twitter that they had not leaked the information but did not deny they were investigating the matter.
Insiders at the PIC claim there was no conflict of interest, but Nene will have to disclose to judge Raymond Zondo his involvement and allegations about improper relations with the Guptas, including whether they were involved in his appointment at the Treasury.
Nene’s evidence at the commission was meant to centre on the circumstances of his sudden dismissal as minister in December 2015 and the tension between the Treasury and Zuma over the R1.6-trillion nuclear build programme.
Nene was fired on the day the deal was approved by cabinet after he and former Treasury director-general Lungisa Fuzile opposed it, arguing it was unaffordable. The day before the deal was approved, Zuma apparently accused the Treasury of being an obstacle to his projects.