MPs might summon Guptas to parliament

ANC MPs are losing patience with the Gupta family’s influence in the procurement deals of stateowned companies to the extent that they are considering summoning them to parliament.

This was a proposal by ANC MP Zukile Luyenge at a meeting between the parliamentary oversight committee on public enterprises and state-owned arms manufacturer Denel yesterday.

The meeting was called to discuss progress that Denel had made regarding disciplinary action against three of its former top executives – CEO Riaaz Saloojee, CFO Michael Mhlotho and company secretary Elizabeth Africa.

The three left the company between 2016 and this year after the Denel board placed them on suspension following their refusal to comply with board members’ instructions to facilitate joint ventures with Gupta-linked firms Denel Asia and VR Laser SA.

President Jacob Zuma’s son Duduzane Zuma also has a stake in VR Laser.

MPs said they did not understand why a state-owned enterprise needed financially struggling “middlemen” to grow their businesses in the Middle East and arms procurement markets.

“We’ve heard that suppliers, or some of the service providers in Denel, are all owned by the Gupta family. If that is the case, have the rightful supply chain processes been followed? If that’s not the case then we ask the question, why is this Gupta name not blacklisted?” Luyenge said.

“Let’s just call these Guptas and they must tell us how did they come to provide services as the level at which they are doing.”

The name of the family also featured when the reemployment of Brian Molefe as Eskom CEO was being discussed on Tuesday by the same committee.

Former finance minister Pravin Gordhan told Daniel Mantsha, chairman of the Denel board, they had failed to demonstrate to the public that they had not been captured by certain families.

“We need to be convinced how it is possible that out of all the entities that might be involved, an entity belonging to particular set of families is always the one that we go to,” he said.

But Mantsha, a legal adviser to pro-Zuma minister Faith Muthambi, denied that the arms maker had been “captured”.

He suggested that MPs had been influenced by “fake news”.

But ANC MP Mondli Gugubele cautioned him to “stick to the facts and not venture into a debate with MPs”.

The committee has now resolved to call Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba and his public enterprises counterpart Lynne Brown to further account on the matter. — TMG