COSATU and the Guptas

Today, 1 March 2011, Ajay Gupta, Duduzane Zuma and Jagdish Parekh met with the COSATU President and General Secretary, at the Guptas' request, in response the COSATU Central Executive Committee's call for research into allegations concerning their companies, and their relationship with government.

They gave COSATU a file giving details of all their companies, which the federation will now study and appoint a person to follow up whatever information may be necessary. The Guptas have offered to co-operate with the COSATU investigation and are prepared to open their books and their bank balances to the probe.

They claim that the Gupta family never took a single cent from government, never tendered or won a government tender, never received any mining license and never received a single cent from the PIC.

They state that the allegation that Brian Molefe's contract was extended for 3 months in order to borrow money from their company or facilitate a deal is not true. Yes, they are friends of Brian Molefe but they never influenced his appointment to Transnet as the CEO.

They agree that they are a business partner with Lazarus Zim but that they in fact tried to convince him not to take up the position at Telkom fearing that they would be blamed for influencing the decision.

The family only had a Memorandum of Understanding with an Indian company to explore the possibility of opening a steel company; the story that they stand to benefit by R23 billion is not true.

Similarly there was only a MOU with a Chinese company - the Chinese Rail Commuter Corporation. The story that they stand to benefit from a R500 million investment is not true.

Both the Indian and Chinese companies are likely to withdraw from South Africa due to the negative publicity.

The Arcelor-Mittal Deal has still to be presented to the shareholders and the likelihood is that the deal will not go through.

They have never ever asked the President to open doors for them in any way. On the contrary they are being harassed and cannot get a loan from any bank. The IDC regard them as PEP (politically exposed persons) and want to slap them with a 10% surcharge. They say that all doors are closing.

Statement issued by Patrick Craven, COSATU national spokesperson, March 1 2011

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