More Gupta splurging

Citizen reporter

The controversial Gupta family’s reputation for lavish weddings precedes them, with the 2013 Sun City marriage of Vega Gupta to Aakash Jahajgarhia having made the family a household name in South Africa.

Remember the outrage they caused by landing a plane full of more than 100 wedding guests at Waterkloof Airforce Base?

Now the Amabhungane investigative unit has reported the family was spending about R100 million on a double wedding that will see both Rajesh “Tony” Gupta’s daughter and Atul Gupta’s son tie the knot.

A nine-page wedding invitation has been sent out for the fiveday celebration at the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates between February 19 and 23.

The R100 million the Guptas were believed to be spending is actually a reduction in costs compared to the family’s last wedding extravaganza.

Ajay Gupta’s son, Kamal Singhala, got married in Turkey in 2016 at a celebration believed to have cost R154 million. This was just after the family had skipped SA, leaving as allegations of state capture eagainst them exploded.

The controversial landing in 2013 of a Gupta-owned jet at the Waterkloof Air Force Base signalled former president Jacob Zuma’s auctioning off of his executive authority to a third party.

This abuse of power was described as “an insult to those who died for freedom in SA”, in testimony at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture, according to former mineral resources minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi.