Gigaba ducks debate

THE absence of Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba in the National Assembly to answer questions on the citizenship status of the controversial Gupta family yesterday drew the ire of opposition parties who accused him of being a “pathological liar”.

Speaker Baleka Mbete read out a letter from Gigaba’s office saying he had to “rush to the doctor” and could therefore not attend the question-and-answer session.

On Tuesday Gigaba denied that Ajay and Atul Gupta, two of the three Indian-born brothers, were granted South African citizenship.

Home Affairs director-general Mkuseli Apleni yesterday tried to clear confusion over the citizenship status of the family.

Apleni clarified, at a hastily arranged press conference, that Atul and Rajesh Gupta were indeed naturalised South Africans, but their sibling Ajay was refused naturalisation because he had not renounced his Indian citizenship.

Ajay only holds a permanent residency of South Africa.

Apleni said Atul’s citizenship was never a subject of an internal probe by the department because he had been granted citizenship in 2002, having arrived in South Africa in 1994. Rajesh was naturalised in 2006.

He confirmed that both brothers appeared on the Independent Electoral Commission’s voters roll as registered voters, and Atul was seen in 2016 at a voting station near his posh Saxonwold house.

“In order to address the Gupta family in its entirety, the department looked at all the people with the Gupta surname who are on the system. We found 39 people who are not naturalised, 13 who are naturalised, and 10 who were born in South Africa, which gives us a total of 62,” Apleni said.

Yesterday the IEC confirmed that Atul was registered to vote in this country – meaning he had a South African ID number and was indeed a citizen.

“Minister Gigaba is a pathological liar,” EFF MP Mbuyiseni Ndlozi said.

During the heated debate, State Security Minister Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba refused to disclose information on the search for the Guptas and Duduzane Zuma, and how the four men slipped through the net and fled to Dubai and India.

Letsatsi-Duba came under fire in Parliament on the failure by her office to pick up information on the Guptas’ intentions to flee last month.

“As I indicated, there are different structures who work together in this operation. Within ourselves as SSA, we cannot go out to the borders to check if Duduzane Zuma has left or not, that responsibility is with immigration and other officials,” Letsatsi-Duba said.