‘The Guptas haven't fled SA'

JOHANNESBURG/PIETERMARITZBURG. — Members of the Gupta family, who are friends of South African President Jacob Zuma, haven’t fled the country following a wave of controversy surrounding their alleged influence over the nation’s leader. “They are not hiding,” Nazeem Howa, the chief executive officer of Oakbay Investments, said yesterday in an interview with Bloomberg TV in Johannesburg. “They’ve not fled the country.”

JOHANNESBURG/PIETERMARITZBURG. — Members of the Gupta family, who are friends of South African President Jacob Zuma, haven’t fled the country following a wave of controversy surrounding their alleged influence over the nation’s leader.

“They are not hiding,” Nazeem Howa, the chief executive officer of Oakbay Investments, said yesterday in an interview with Bloomberg TV in Johannesburg. “They’ve not fled the country.” Brothers Ajay and Atul Gupta had left for Dubai on a private jet — likely for good — on Thursday night, it was reported by City Press and Rapport.

Oakbay Investments is entirely owned by members of the Gupta family.

That company owns 80 percent of Johannesburg-listed Oakbay Resources and Energy.

Atul Gupta and Varun Gupta resigned their positions at Oakbay Resources on Friday after financial services groups — including accounting firm KPMG and Barclays Africa Group’s Absa unit — dropped the company and other Gupta-controlled businesses as clients, as questions about the family’s influence over Zuma mounted.

Duduzane Zuma who stepped down as a director of the company’s Shiva Uranium unit, said he is planning to divest from the businesses.

The Economic Freedom Fighters’ Mbuyiseni Ndlozi told News24 that the exit of the Guptas showed that they had conceded.

President Zuma is facing mounting pressure to resign as president following a court ruling over his response to a graft ombudsman report and after allegations by senior officials of the ruling African National Congress that the Guptas offered them cabinet posts in exchange for business concessions.

The claims have spurred probes by the party and the public protector.

Howa said there is no evidence of corruption against the Guptas.

South Africa’s four biggest banks have given Oakbay until the end of May before its accounts are closed, Howa said.

“It’s unprecedented for the four major banks to walk away from an institution,” he said.

The Gupta family’s businesses span media, computers, mining and engineering.

Howa said 7 500 jobs are under threat because the businesses can’t operate without those bank accounts.

While the family is distancing itself from its business, “there’s no indication at this point” that it’s planning to divest, Howa said.

Meanwhile, former finance minister Nhlanhla Nene, whose sacking wiped about R500bn from the country’s equity markets, is keeping up to date with the Gupta controversy.

He read news reports Sunday that the Gupta family had left South Africa aboard a private jet.

He also read the reports on the two “Gupta ministers” — David van Rooyen and Mosebenzi Zwane — who have been accused of conducting secret trips to Dubai at the same time that the family were visiting.

But for now, Nene said that he is preoccupied with other matters at his home in KwaZulu-Natal and did not want to weigh in on the political battles that have rocked South Africa.

“Until I make my next move, I am enjoying intimate time with my family, and also doing my gardening,” he said when contacted telephonically.

Nene, who has three adult children — the youngest of whom has just started a social science degree at the University of Cape Town — said he was constantly approached to comment and get involved. “But I am no longer a public figure, I don’t need to react for now.”

Nene had not yet heard anything regarding the Brics bank post that President Jacob Zuma used as a reason for unceremoniously removing him as minister last December.

Asked whether he would take the post if formally offered to him, Nene said: “That will depend on the profile of the job.”

President Zuma had said Nene was the preferred candidate to head the Africa Regional Centre of the new bank.

Nene said he would return to public life: “Just watch this space,” he said.—Fin24/City Press/HR.