Call to discipline ministers
PRESSURE is mounting on the ANC to act against government ministers and members who have allegedly damaged the reputation of the party through their links to the Guptas.
Yesterday, ANC presidential hopeful and Minister of Human Settlements Lindiwe Sisulu wrote to fellow ANC member Derek Hanekom and to the acting ANC disciplinary committee chairperson asking them to consider disciplinary charges against ministers who were exposed in the leaked Gupta emails.
Sisulu did not divulge to Independent Media the contents of her letters, but she confirmed: “I have written letters to Derek Hanekom and the acting chair of the disciplinary committee.”
She made her intentions known when she addressed a banquet in memory of ANC Struggle stalwart Ahmed Kathrada, which was hosted in Johannesburg on Sunday by the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation.
Hanekom is chairperson of the foundation. He was present when Sisulu delivered the eulogy to Kathrada.
Hanekom has been temporarily removed as disciplinary committee chairperson following his tweets in the run-up to the vote of no confidence against President Jacob Zuma in Parliament on August 8.
In her address, Sisulu accused those ANC members with Gupta links of being responsible for the low turnout of voters to the polls, as well as the ANC’s loss of three metropolitan municipalities – Joburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay – in the local government elections last year.
At the time of writing, the ANC was not aware of the letter.
Sisulu’s call comes after political parties and civil society organisations have laid criminal charges against those allegedly implicated in state capture. The police have yet to act against those implicated.
Sisulu’s calls also come as the country awaits the ruling of a full bench of the High Court in Pretoria on an application to force Zuma to appoint a judicial commission of inquiry into state capture.
On July 4, the DA’s David Maynier laid criminal charges against Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane, Atul Gupta, Ajay Gupta, Rajesh Gupta, Ronica Raghavan and Kamal Vasram at Cape Town Police Station.
The charges include racketeering; money laundering; assisting another to benefit from the proceeds of unlawful activities; acquiring, possessing or using the proceeds of unlawful activities in terms of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act; and submitting false or untrue tax returns.
The charges follow reports that public funds were allegedly laundered through a complex web of front companies and used to pay for Vega Gupta and Aakash Jahajgarhia’s wedding at Sun City in 2013.
According to reports, public funds were laundered from a Free State dairy farm project via Dubai to pay for the extravagant wedding.
Zwane was Free State MEC for agriculture.
At the time, Maynier said: “The fact that public funds, meant to assist the poor, were allegedly used to pay for President Jacob Zuma’s number one clients, the Guptas’, family wedding is grotesque and must be investigated.”