Mbeki weighs in on Zuma scandal
Weekly letter tackles significance of top court’s Nkandla judgment
FORMER President Thabo Mbeki has waded into the debate on the crisis facing SA in the wake of the scathing Constitutional Court judgment that criticised President Jacob Zuma for his failure to defend and uphold the country’s supreme law.
Mr Mbeki’s voice adds to the growing of list of leaders and civic movement organisations that have called for a meaningful implementation of the outcomes of the March 31 judgment. But the African National Congress (ANC) has ignored calls for Mr Zuma to resign.
Mr Mbeki was expected today to comment in a standalone article to be distributed via social media channels on the wider significance of the judgment on the Nkandla scandal.
In extracts released by the Thabo Mbeki Foundation yester- day, the former president calls for the court ruling to be implemented fully and warns that failure fully to implement its remedies would threaten democracy.
“One of these ‘foundational values’ is obviously the prescript that all the obligations imposed by the Constitution must be fulfilled,” he writes.
“As a corollary to this, the Constitutional Court therefore made the determination that failure to observe these ‘foundational values’ might threaten the very ‘survival of our democracy’, and therefore constitute a counter-revolutionary act, where the revolution is understood as the establishment of our Constitutional Democracy,” Mr Mbeki says.
He has avoided commenting on contemporary issues since his wounding exit from the political stage in 2008. Mr Mbeki has written 15 essays since the beginning of the year, analysing and responding to the interpretation by the public and commentators of his actions while he was in government.
In a speech in 2012, Mr Mbeki said he was “deeply troubled by a feeling of great unease that our beloved motherland is losing its sense of direction, and that we are allowing ourselves to progress towards a costly disaster of a protracted and endemic general crisis”.
He added: “I, for one, am not certain about where our country and nation will be tomorrow, and what I should do in this regard, to respond to what is obviously a dangerous and unacceptable situation of directionless and unguided national drift.”
Mr Mbeki’s letter is likely to tackle the political implications of the judgment currently and into the future. He is also expected to argue that the judges’ interpretation of the supreme law as the legal basis of SA’s democratic arrangement was similar to the ANC’s own understanding when it submitted its own proposals during the drafting phase of the country’s Constitution.
The judgment would help parties in deciding the pedigree and the conduct desired from the people they would field as presidential candidates in future elections, Mbeki is expected to say.
It calls for stricter adherence to the rule of law, and locates the Constitution and democracy at the centre of the revolution, arguing further that actions that undermined the supreme law were, in effect, themselves a counter-revolution. Mr Mbeki’s letter is likely to put more pressure on the ANC and Mr Zuma — whose friends, the Gupta family, were reported to have left the country for Dubai last week.
The departure of
The letter is likely to put more pressure on the ANC and Mr Zuma
Atul and Ajay Gupta with a “mountain of suitcases” on a private jet from Lanseria airport bound for Dubai on Thursday has raised more questions than answers about the motives of the controversial family and the future of their investments.
Ever since disclosures about their astounding influence over President Jacob Zuma including their ability to influence Cabinet choices, has become public knowledge, the Gupta family has faced a storm of adverse publicity and accusations of graft.
The termination of banking services by two of the country’s big banks — Absa and FNB — with Standard and Nedbank reportedly soon to follow, as well as the termination of auditing services by KPMG in recent weeks, has placed their businesses — Oakbay Resources and Energy, Sahara Holdings and TNA Media — in precarious circumstances.
CE of Oakbay Investments and spokesman for the family Nazeem Howa was quoted extensively in City Press yesterday, explaining the family’s decision to quit SA after having been socially ostracised and now isolated by the banks.
Following the resignation on Friday of Ajay and Atul Gupta, as well as Mr Zuma’s son Duduzane Zuma, from directorships in all Gupta-associated companies, Mr Howa said he now hoped to persuade banks to again provide banking services.
But even though the withdrawal of local banking services — the company still has the services of India’s Bank of Baroda — is a devastating blow to their operations, many in business and banking circles yesterday questioned the likelihood of the Guptas “having suddenly upped and gone”, given the extent to which the family has built extended networks of influence and patronage in parastatals and state departments.
While a large show was made of the resignation as directors, there is far less clarity on the status of their shareholding in the various enterprises or the future of the rest of their commercial interests.
There is much scepticism over whether the very public departure to Dubai will also mean that they liquidate their assets and genuinely divest, in the process turning their back on an extensive network of influence comprising private individuals (many of whom sit on boards of state-owned enterprises), politicians and government officials.
Adding to the confusion was an early morning message from Atul Gupta on Twitter in which he said: “Please understand. We are going to Dubai. But for a much needed vacation! We still have interests in SA and will relocate to Durban.” The tweet was later deleted. The Gupta family’s domestic business empire, which centres on information technology, mining and media, is heavily dependent on political connections. Because much of it is unlisted, it would be difficult to price if they wished to exit, particularly under current weak market conditions for mining and media.
The oldest business is Sahara Holdings, which was begun by brothers Atul, Anil and Rajesh about 20 years ago. It assembles and markets PCs and sells consumables. Sahara’s empowerment partners include Afripalm, headed by Lazarus Zim, and Mvelaphanda Resources, which was founded by Tokyo Sexwale.
In mining, the Gupta family holds interests through Oakbay Investments in contract miner JIC, Shiva Uranium (in which Duduzane Zuma was a director until Friday) and Tegeta Exploration and Resources.
Shiva and Tegeta are part of JSElisted Oakbay Resources and Energy. Tegeta owns the Brakfontein coal mine, which supplies state-owned Eskom and recently agreed to buy the Optimum Coal mine, an Eskom supplier, from Glencore. Shiva Uranium was bought with a R250m loan from the state-owned Industrial Development Corporation.
Although it is speculated that Shiva Uranium is positioning itself to supply SA’s planned nuclear power stations, it is mining gold only, not uranium at Dominion mine, because uranium prices are too low.
The business-rescue practitioners behind the rescue plan for Optimum Coal Mine are confident Tegeta can continue with plans to buy Optimum. Sources close to the deal indicated the necessary funding had been secured. The deal will be concluded only once the purchase price has been paid.
Although the Guptas have resigned their directorships of the Oakbay companies, the family remains the controlling shareholder with an estimated 68%. With Ann Crotty
Please understand. We are going to Dubai. But for a much needed vacation