I want to clear my name, says Ajay Gupta
Eldest Gupta brother, riled by state capture inquiry, denies charges from afar
DUBAI: Marooned outside South Africa, Ajay Gupta has been obsessively following the news from home with increasing frustration. Nearly every day for the past couple of months, witnesses at a high-profile inquiry on corruption have painted his family as the masterminds of the government looting that has engulfed the nation.
He says the accusations infuriate him. But Gupta and his two brothers, who left South Africa early this year when president Jacob Zuma was forced out of power, have no plans to return and give their side of the story – at least not yet. They say they fear wrongful arrest if they return to South Africa, where their power appeared uncontested less than a year ago.
The inquiry’s leaders have rejected the Guptas’ offers to testify by video conference or other means – creating the possibility that a wide-ranging government inquiry determined to ferret out the truth will not hear from some of the main characters.
“I’m not saying that I’m not coming to the commission,” Gupta, the oldest brother, said in Dubai, where the family is now based. “I will, but not this moment.”
He added: “I want to clear my name.”
The inquiry into state capture has gripped the nation with its glimpses into the Byzantine ways power has been amassed and wielded within the ANC. Scheming politicians, powerful bankers and prominent officials have featured prominently in the ever-lengthening cast of characters.
The hearings, which began two months ago and could last for years, are supposed to shed light on the corruption that has consumed South Africa. And the Guptas are at the heart of it – accused of having built a business empire based on graft through their ties with Zuma, his family and allies.
Some experts say that the hearings could be cathartic for a corruption-tainted era in the nation’s history, the way the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission did two decades ago. That is, if a true picture emerges from the corruption hearings.
In his first extensive interview since leaving South Africa, Gupta, 53, forcefully rejected accusations made in the hearings against his family, including that he and his brothers offered ministerial positions on the president’s behalf in return for favours.
Instead of being the architects of government corruption, Gupta said his family had been caught in the crossfire between rival ANC factions and their business allies.
The family, he said, was the victim of politically motivated law enforcement authorities and a witch hunt that could not withstand scrutiny in court. Despite the many accusations that his family essentially defrauded the government by siphoning off enormous sums of money from government contracts and other deals, Gupta noted that prosecutors had charged them only once, in a case involving a dairy farm.
In significant setbacks, prosecutors have twice failed to prove that the money siphoned from the dairy farm project, called Estina, directly benefited Gupta or other companies linked to the Gupta family.
A high court judge released most of the assets frozen in the case in March, and the court ruled in favour of the companies linked to the Guptas again in May. A separate criminal case is still under way.
“Was Ajay Gupta or the Gupta family proven guilty? One place? One smallest thing?” Gupta asked.
The office of the former public protector called for the creation of an inquiry into a report on corruption in 2016. Zuma unsuccessfully tried to block the investigation a few months before he was ousted from power in February by his deputy, Cyril Ramaphosa.
In recent weeks, the actions of some of Ramaphosa’s closest allies have come to light in the hearings, indicating that they were not completely innocent. ANC leaders reacted angrily, saying that the party was “not on trial”.
The most damaging report centred on Nhlanhla Nene, widely considered, until a few weeks ago a hero in the fight against corruption in the Zuma administration.
Early this month, Nene testified that he had been fired by Zuma as finance minister in late 2015 after he refused to endorse a nuclear energy deal that critics said was meant to enrich the former president’s business allies – a pivotal episode in the ANC’s recent history.
But under pressure from an opposition party, Nene – who was reappointed finance minister by Ramaphosa early this year – acknowledged in the hearings that he had previously lied, in public, about his meetings with the Gupta family.
Nene, who had said in the past that he had never visited the Guptas’ residence, said he had in fact done so on multiple occasions – even after becoming finance minister in 2014.
“I was not requested to do anything to benefit the Gupta family or Ajay Gupta, nor was I offered any inducement,” he said in his statement to the commission.
Nene issued an apology to the nation about the visits to the Gupta home, and he was forced to resign last week.
Gupta, though, said there had been nothing wrong with Nene’s visits to his home.
“Forget Nene,” he said. “We never asked any minister for any commercial benefit.”
Over the years, Gupta said, countless senior politicians from the ANC and the opposition had visited his home.
“Who did not come and meet me?” Gupta asked. He added: “Meeting with people, there’s nothing wrong. Every business organisation meets the politicians and the people.”
In a hearing, Gupta’s lawyer, Michael Hellens, argued on his behalf that the inquiry’s goal of seeking the truth would be undermined without the brothers’ testimony.
“You will not have heard the evidence of the Guptas,” Hellens said. “Now what value will that finding be?” |