Trips abroad for sons of bigwigs
THE Guptas sponsored trips for the sons of some of their biggest government defenders, and were even asked to buy airtime for ANC members.
Among those who benefited from their largesse was ANC deputy secretarygeneral Jessie Duarte’s son, Yusha Duarte, who went on a business trip paid for by the Guptas in 2014.
Free State ANC chairman Ace Magashule’s sons Tshepiso and Thato also benefited, with an eight-day stay at the super-luxurious Oberoi hotel in Dubai on Sahara Computers’ account in December 2015.
Leaked e-mails show that Tony Gupta received a request for R43 000 in airtime, apparently from Magashule, during the 2014 general elections.
The e-mail, sent by former Free State legislature institutional support-services director Mosidi Motsemme, asks for R120 worth of MTN airtime for each of the ANC’s 362 Free State agents.
This is “as per directive of the FS ANC chairperson”, she says in the e-mail to Tshepiso. Her e-mail is also sent to a Gmail address whose recipient forwards it to Tony. It read: “It will be appreciated if airtime amounting to R120 per person could be loaded today, 06 May 2014.”
Motsemme refused to respond to questions, only saying: “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
The ANC’s spokesman in the province, Thabo Meeko, said fundraising was an internal ANC issue.
“Why the isolation of the Guptas? We don’t want to be entangled in this thing, isolating those who are assisting the ANC,” he said.
Gupta attorney Gert van der Merwe said he had advised his clients not to respond to media inquiries until the veracity of the mails had been established.
Tshepiso and Thato’s stay at The Oberoi hotel was a little over a year after the Guptas had scored millions in a dairy-farm project in the Free State town of Vrede, hometown of Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane.
Zwane, who has also been entertained in Dubai by the Guptas, was MEC for agriculture at the time and the funds poured into this project were from his department.
The Magashule brothers did not respond to Sunday Times queries sent via Meeko.
Yusha flew to Delhi from Johannesburg in 2014 accompanied by his then business partner and Gupta associate Malcolm Mabaso.
E-mails between Sahara and a travel agent show the Guptas paid for the trip.
Yusha also failed to
We don’t want to be entangled in this thing
respond to questions.
Yusha and Mabaso left South Africa on November 8 2014 and returned two days later. Mabaso was then appointed political adviser to Zwane.
Duarte denied introducing her son to the Guptas, whom she has vigorously defended: “I am not intimately acquainted with the family and all the people my son may or may not have met. I am aware he went to India at some point. I do not know who paid for this trip,” she told the Sunday Times.
Noting government branches had lodged investigations, Free State provincial government spokesperson Tiisetso Makhele said: “Until such investigations are concluded . . . [we] shall not respond to enquiries relating to the sources, content or allegations emanating from these ‘leaked’ emails . . . We seek to place it on record that [we] shall continue a sustained service delivery campaign . . . characterised by good governance and sound financial management . . ."