Khoza hits out at ANC over state capture concerns
Business leader says impartial inquiry into Guptas needed
THE allegations of state capture against the Gupta family should rather have been investigated by a judicial commission of inquiry than by the ANC.
That is the view of Reuel Khoza, former chairman of Nedbank and Eskom, who said this week of the ANC’s abortive investigation: “True to form, in virtually no time this thing was smothered to death by all manner of political rationalisations. So I don’t believe it is adequately addressed.”
He said the claims should have been assessed by a professional and objective body that was not associated with whoever was deemed to be the culprit.
“It’s difficult to say that enough is being done because just as you think you have addressed the issues, a lot more comes out of the woodwork,” he said.
His comments come as the Guptas, for the first time, this week publicly rejected allegations of state capture.
Khoza was speaking to Business Times after receiving the 2016 Luminary Award from the Free Market Foundation for his outspokenness as a business leader.
The Gupta family have been accused of offering ministerial posts to their favoured candidates and of influencing processes in government departments.
They describe themselves as friends of President Jacob Zuma and are in business with his son Duduzane.
In March, the ANC said it would probe the state capture allegations, but it dropped the plan after it received only one written complaint.
On Wednesday, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe said: “Reuel Khoza has never come here [to ANC headquarters at Luthuli House]. So his comment about the ANC is inappropriate.”
He said the inquiry had not been abandoned but set aside and added the ANC did not have jurisdiction over judicial inquiries. “If they [complainants] prefer an external institution, we say go ahead.”
In 2012, Khoza angered the ANC when he criticised Zuma’s leadership.
This week, Ajay Gupta, one of three Gupta brothers who moved to South Africa in the early ’90s, denied that the family’s regular meetings with cabinet ministers amounted to state influence.
He told the SABC at a breakfast sponsored by his company that meetings were held the first Sunday of every month at the presidential guesthouse. “We all sit together and discuss the country and what best we can do for the country.”
But only 1% of the family business was with government. “So how do we capture? I don’t understand,” said Gupta.
Public protector Thuli Madonsela is awaiting funding to launch an investigation into the state capture allegations.
Khoza said investors were still concerned at the way Zuma fired Nhlanhla Nene as finance minister in December last year — one of the events that sparked the state capture fears — and replaced him with Des van Rooyen. After intervention by business leaders, Zuma quickly replaced Van Rooyen with Pravin Gordhan.
Khoza said now investors were saying: “Why don’t you leave the current minister of finance alone, at worst? At best, you should actually be enabling him and rallying around him because he is doing a superb job in tandem with business leadership.”
Gordhan appealed for public support last month after reports that the Hawks were trying to build a case against him.
A business working group with Gordhan and Telkom chairman Jabu Mabuza at the helm has devised strategies to address unemployment and inequality and save South Africa’s investment-grade credit rating.
Khoza said much had been achieved by this group but the momentum had to be continued. “Come December, unless that combination continues to deliver, we’ll end up being downgraded.”
He had stern words for government leadership, which he said had evolved into a “strange breed of leaders, determined to subjugate the rule of law and override our noble constitution”. Of civil society he said there was “an intelligentsia replete with degrees . . . but devoid of courage and character, content to be bystanders through a corrosive . . . moral collapse”.
The Free Market Foundation said it had selected Khoza for its award because of his courage in taking “a consistent and principled stand against poor policy, corruption and incompetence in government . . .” — Additional reporting by Bloomberg. Comment on this: write to letters@businesstimes.co.za or SMS us at 33971 www.sundaytimes.co.za