Firms cut off Oakbay ‘on call by Gordhan’

The call by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan to “clip the wings” of the Gupta family resulted in 24 businesses disassociating themselves from the Oakbay Group, Oakbay Investments acting CE Ronica Ragavan said.

These were in addition to the country’s four largest banks, which refused to do business with the Gupta company.

In October, Gordhan applied for a declaratory order confirming that he could not intervene in a dispute between Oakbay Investments and the four banks.

Responding to the application, Ragavan claimed “sources” had revealed that Gordhan said in a meeting with 60 captains of industry that steps had to be taken to “clip the wings” of the politically connected family.

“Many of these entities announced their sudden decision publicly and in concert in an effort to drum up all the support they could to execute the ‘instruction’ received from the minister and to be seen in doing so,” she said. “The onslaught

after the minister’s address was severe and has had a significant and negative impact on the Oakbay Group, which will be apparent in the 2017 year-end statements,” she said.

Ragavan provided a list of the companies as an annexure to her affidavit. They included auditing firms KPMG, E&Y, Deloitte and Grant Thornton as well as the Oppenheimers’ aviation company Fireblade, ExecuJet Aviation SA, insurance company Zurich, Barloworld Equipment and LG Electronics.

She said the only company that had disassociated itself from the Oakbay Group before the meeting at which Gordhan allegedly made the comments was Absa.