Guptagate

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!