Zuptagate corruption charges referred to the Hawks
22 March 2016
On Thursday 17 March 2016 I laid charges of corruption against Atul Gupta, Ajay Gupta and Duduzane Zuma, in terms of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act (No. 12 of 2004), at a police station in Cape Town.
This followed the public statement made by the Deputy Minister of Finance, Mcebisi Jonas, on 16 March 2016, alleging that members of the Gupta family had offered him the position of Finance Minister, prior to the firing of the former Minister of Finance, Nhlanhla Nene, on 09 December 2015.
I have now received notification that the South African Police Service have:
allocated a case number as follows: CAS 1200/3/2016; and
transferred the case for further investigation to the anti-corruption unit within the Directorate of Priority Crime Investigation (“The Hawks”).
I have, therefore, written to the Deputy Minister of Finance, Mcebisi Jonas, urging him to prepare a sworn statement, in the form of a signed affidavit, setting out all the details concerning the alleged meeting.
The details should include at least:
the names of the persons present at the alleged meeting;
the names of the person or persons who allegedly made the offer;
the venue, date and time of the alleged meeting;
whether the alleged offer was conditional on support for the Nuclear Build Programme and/or purging National Treasury officials; and
the name of the business person who allegedly arranged the meeting.
I have also requested the Deputy Minister to make the affidavit available to the public and to assist the investigation by submitting the affidavit to the South African Police Service.
The allegations made by the Deputy Minister are very serious and amount to prima facieevidence of corruption and should be reported to the South African Police Service, not to ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe who is clearly trying to politically manage and contain the political fallout from “Zuptagate”.
Issued by Davin Maynier, DA Shadow Minister of Finance, 22 March 2016
