DA leader Mmusi Maimane. Image: ANA file photo
Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Mmusi Maimane released a statement on Tuesday revealing his intention of submitting written parliamentary questions to each of the 35 ministers in president Cyril Ramaphosa’s cabinet in an attempt to get them to admit to having attended meetings with the Guptas.
According to Maimane, only one minister, Rob Davis, officially met with the controversial family, but since the revelation that finance minister Nhlanhla Nene had met with them several times while deputy finance minister, despite having previously denied this, Maimane wants to grill other ministers under the belief that they too may have met with the Guptas.
Maimane singled out “Malusi Gigaba, Bathabile Dlamini, Nomvula Mokonyane, Zweli Mkhize, Lindiwe Zulu, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, and Gwede Mantashe” as ministers he accuses of having “questionable links” to the Guptas as well as their associates.
READ MORE: Justice system capture now coming to an end – DA
Nene’s Gupta meetings have damaged the reputation of a man once thought to be “clean” compared to those ANC politicians who have been implemented in state capture.
His political survival now hangs in the balance, as the economy has taken a knock amid Nene’s fall from grace. President Ramaphosa is expected to confront the issue publicly, which he has so far failed to do.
The leader of the opposition is unsurprisingly quick to seize on the revelation of Nene’s Gupta meetings as evidence that the ANC as a whole is corrupt.
According to the DA leader, the Nene controversy “shows that the rot of state capture goes much deeper than former president Jacob Zuma and the Gupta family. There is no ‘good ANC’ and ‘bad ANC’. There is one ANC, united around corruption and self-enrichment”.
“The ‘smallanyana skeletons’ are beginning to fall out the closet,” he said.
For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.