Yet another
of all those “gates”! As we know it all started with the fall of Nixon after
the Watergate affair 1972. Recently we have followed the Nkandlagate story, although
it hasn’t led to the fall of Jacob Zuma yet. My gut feeling is that Zuma will
survive the Guptagate, as well. This is also what the Mail and Guardian writes:
Meanwhile, analysts seem convinced that President Jacob Zuma will remain unharmed politically, despite his close relationship with the Gupta family.
There are already some scapegoats, which
have been sacrificed. Some are police officers; others are staff at the air
force base. But it won’t stop with them. The question Mail and Guardian asks
is:
Who will take the fall for Guptagate?
For those
who don’t know, the Gupta family is a rich, South African family with close
links to the ANC and Jacob Zuma. In media the family is described as a major donor to
the ANC. Last Saturday one family member got married. A private jet brought 200
guests from India to the wedding. Here started the so called Gupta saga.
The family asked South African authorities for permission to land at the Waterkloof air force base outside Pretoria. This would make
it much easier for the guests to get to Sun City, where the wedding was going
to be held. The family claims they wanted to showcase South Africa as a
friendly country and maybe bring many more visitors from India in years to
come. Be that as it may! The request was refused!
This did not stop the family. If you are
influential, you don’t take no for an answer. So, the Indian high commissioner,
Virendra Gupta, was consulted and obviously he had other contacts. So what
happened was this:
The plane landed at the air force base, without official permission.The South African Revenue Service was not informed, so no custom control took place.Police vehicles were used to accompany the guest from the air force base to Sun City.Blue lights were illegally fitted to the black BMW’s that had been hired for the occasion.Etc.
I am sure
that the list can be made much longer. The bottom line is this: This family has
close connections with the president of South Africa and the allegation is that
this fact opened all the gates.
The mere
fact that five (5) ministers were present at a press conference last week, tells
at least me, that the whole government is worried. Yahoonews mentions Justice Minister Jeffrey Radebe, together with the ministers of
home affairs, foreign affairs, police and defence. Five persons with a lot of
power! What did they do? They announced that five officials and military
personnel had been suspended from duty. Cowards!
At the
press conference a journalist asked the ministers if the cabinet had known
about this affair if it hadn’t been for the media. The question was left
unanswered.
The new
Secrecy bill may serve as a terrifying backdrop to this saga. What will happen
in South Africa, if whistle blowers are not able to blow their whistles (or in the
South African context: blow their vuvuzelas)? What will happen, if media don't report?
Mail and
Guardian asks a relevant question about the involvement of the High
Commissioner of India:
... did he act on the presumption that the plane carried an Indian diplomatic mission, or did he know that the passengers were part of a private party?
Because the
family is also influential in India, there were some dignitaries on the plane.
If so, one could argue, that those people, based on security reasons, needed to
be treated differently. But if this was the case, wouldn’t it have been better
to go through the Indian foreign affairs ministry?
Another issue is also reported about the
way the wedding guests treated the black staff at Sun City. According to News24 the Gupta family brought in their own chefs and all the security guards were
replaced by white persons. This is of course denied by the Gupta family, but
the trade union is furious.
Secretary General Zwelinzima Vavi of COSATU
says:
We must demand the fullest possible investigation into the whole incident and the real culprits exposed - not scapegoats from among the officials, who surely could not have taken such an obviously politically sensitive decision.
But then Vavi is also facing corruption
charges in his own organisation.
People of South Africa: wake up! Revisit
the constitution and the core values of Ubuntu! This is not the way forward!
You deserve better!
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