Home

‘Zuma told ANC NEC he was indebted to Guptas’

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Former Mineral Resources Minister, Ngoako Ramathlodi says the African National Congress (ANC)’s National Executive Committee (NEC) raised concerns with former President Jacob Zuma about his relationship with the Gupta family, but that he refused to end it, saying he was indebted to them.

Ramathlodi is on the witness stand at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture – underway in Parktown, Johannesburg.

The former minister says the Gupta family had the power to summon Zuma to their Saxonwold residence and would boast about it. He says the Guptas had humiliated Zuma.

“Presidents have got friends in the business community and so on. They do receive people. But these ones, I felt they were insulting even the President, because what they were doing is to show off and they had captured the Republic. It’s theirs.”

“They are not Presidents but they can land at the Waterkloof Air Force Base. The Guptas had the power to summon the President to their home and they would boast about it. They had the power to then summon ministers who were wet behind the ears, who can just run there. So they call you to their home. They don’t even meet at a hotel. They want you in their home,” adds Ramatlhodi.

The former minister has also told the commission that he has it on good authority that it was the former President who authorised the landing of the Gupta family aircraft at Waterkloof Air Force Base ahead of a family wedding at Sun City in 2013.

‘ANC failed to remove Zuma’

Ramathlodi has told the commission of inquiry into state capture that the ANC failed to remove former President Jacob Zuma from office because it was paralyzed.

He says it took until the ANC’s Nasrec Conference at the end of 2017, when Zuma ended his term as party president, to change the balance of power within the party.

“It took a conference to change the balance of power – Nasrec. It was only that remedy that came in. Before that it was paralysis. You could look at the NEC in that sense – a paralysed organisation because of the factors I’ve mentioned. So it took a conference to change the balance.”

Click below to watch the live stream…

Author

MOST READ