Gordhan steps into Gupta fray

Finance minister, Pravin Gordhan. Picture: Linda Mthombeni

Finance minister, Pravin Gordhan. Picture: Linda Mthombeni

Published Feb 22, 2016

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Johannesburg - The Gupta family is making headlines, and for all the wrong reasons. And now Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan has - just days before arguably his toughest budget - stepped into the fray.

Gordhan has, according to the Sunday Times, pulled the plug on the Gupta-owned New Age newspaper's post-budget breakfast briefing, which was set for Thursday. IOL understands this breakfast has moved from being an exclusive event to an open media briefing.

The Guptas, and President Jacob Zuma, have been lambasted by opposition parties - notably the Economic Freedom Fighters - and cries of “Zupta must fall” are resonating through SA.

However, very little is known about this family and their role in South African business. IOL has made use of publicly available information to pull together what we know about this controversial family.

According to the BBC, brothers Ajay, Atul and Rajesh - who it says is known as Tony - Gupta moved to SA when they were in their 40s. They moved, says the UK-based site, from India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh in Saharanpur in 1993.

Says the BBC: “Family spokesman Haranath Ghosh told the BBC by email that their father, Shiv Kumar Gupta sent Atul to South Africa, believing that Africa was about to become the “America of the world” - the world's land of opportunity.

Read also:  ‘Zuma’s son a top shareholder’

After moving to SA, the Gupta family started Sahara Computers, a company completely separate to the Indian conglomerate of the same name, which reportedly employs 10 000 people and turns over about R200 million.

The family’s ties to Zuma are well documented. According to the BBC, Bongi Ngema-Zuma, one of the president's wives, works for the Guptas and Duduzile Zuma, his daughter, was a director at Sahara Computers in 2008, but has since resigned.

Ravindra Nath, who has been CEO at Tegeta Resources from November 2010 according to his LinkedIn profile, was also at a stage CFO at Sahara, and apparently played a “vital” role in the formation of several companies, including Oakbay Investments, Westdawn Investments, Tegeta Exploration & Resources and Tegeta Resources as well as Oakbay Trust, among others.

Government links

Meanwhile, Duduzane Zuma, a son of the president, is a director in some Gupta-owned companies, including one that recently and – controversially – indirectly bought out Glencore’s Optimum mine for R2.15 billion, which supplies some coal to Eskom’s Arnot plant. Bloomberg reports he’s the biggest individual shareholder in Tegeta Exploration & Resources.

Towards the end of last year, Tegeta Exploration & Resources, a company owned by Oakbay Investments and Mabengela Investments, purchased the former Glencore mine, Optimum, which had been placed into bankruptcy protection.

Read also:  Minister’s link to Guptas grows deeper

According to Bloomberg, Tegeta wants to find more opportunities after being cleared by regulators to acquire Glencore’s Optimum coal complex. “Tegeta is an ambitious business and on the lookout for new opportunities to grow the business,” it quotes an email from Oakbay Investments as saying. “It is our view that any person, or company, should be free to compete fairly for any business.”

The company is now also acquiring the rights to export eight million metric tons of coal through the Richard’s Bay Coal Terminal, Bloomberg reports.

The Gupta family also owns uranium assets through its listed Oakbay company. Oakbay Resources & Energy owns 74 percent of Shiva Uranium and Atul is its chairman, with Varun as CEO, according to its website. Shiva Uranium, which owns the Dominion and Rietkuil mines, was previously a unit of Uranium One, formerly run by Neal Froneman, Sibanye Gold’s current CEO.

The company’s registered offices are the same as those for Tegeta. Mabengela, in which Zuma’s son, Duduzane Zuma, has a stake, also has an interest in the Shiva Uranium operation, which the Gupta family controls through Oakbay, Bloomberg reports. Duduzane Zuma and Gupta family members are directors of at least 11 of the same companies, publicly available documents show, the wire service says.

Read also:  Gupta-Zuma firm eyes coal export rights

The Guptas also seem to have links to the government’s controversial strategy to include nuclear power in its plan to keep SA’s lights on, as African Confidential has revealed that the Gupta family stands to benefit from a nuclear deal. Uranium is a key ingredient for a nuclear plant.

The London-based publication reported that President Jacob Zuma’s shocking firing of finance minister Nhlanhla Nene last December, a move that resulted in the rand losing further ground initially, was actually a bid to get around resistance to the nuclear plan.

This follows on Independent's revelation last December that the controversial nuclear deal was behind Nene's axing, rather than his fallout with SAA board chair Dudu Myeni as was reported at the time. Independent also broke the news of Nene's pending ouster.

African Confidential reported that the main beneficiaries of the nuclear deal, which could cost SA as much as R1 trillion, are the Guptas. The London publication reported that the Guptas influenced Zuma to appoint Van Rooyen as their intention was to secure uranium contracts for the nuclear plants, in a similar fashion to the way they secured a coal mine that supplies about a sixth of Arnot power station’s coal needs.

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Bloomberg has also reported that, after Zuma promoted Mosebenzi Zwane from provincial politics to run the Department of Mineral Resources in September, Malcolm Mabaso became his political adviser. Mabaso and Salim Essa, a business partner of the Guptas, are both directors of a company called Premium Security and Cleaning Services, which the wire service attributes to according to publicly available company filings.

The BBC also reports the Gupta family also has interests in other assets beyond mining, such as air travel, energy, technology and media. It quotes Atul as saying they met President Zuma 10 years ago “when he was a guest in one of Sahara's annual functions”.

In addition, African News Agency has reported that the Guptas have a minority interest in a joint-venture partnership that the state-owned arms manufacturing company Denel has in Asia.

The BBC site also reports that the Guptas live on a “heavily-guarded” family Sahara Estate in Saxonwold, which comprises four mansions and is worth R52 million.

IOL

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