Johannesburg – Democratic Alliance leader Mmusi Maimane said on Wednesday that President Jacob Zuma must come clean on the extent of his involvement with the wealthy Gupta family.
Speaking after former senior ANC MP Vytjie Mentor’s claim that the Guptas offered her a ministerial position, Maimane said: “President Jacob Zuma will need to answer truthfully before the National Assembly, which elected him and is duty-bound to hold him accountable for his actions, including the appointment of ministers, and his stewardship of the economy.”
Read: Vytjie Mentor: Zuma knows me
He said that Zuma was expected to appear in Parliament on Thursday in terms of Rule 111 to “to answer questions about, among other things, his mismanagement of the economy and the process he followed when he hired and then fired Des van Rooyen, within a period of three days.”
Maimane said he had asked the president if he had “consulted any person before the appointment of Mr David van Rooyen as minister of finance on December 9, 2015, and removal of Mr van Rooyen as minister of finance three days later.”
Read: Zuma’s ‘angazi’ over Mentor an insult, says DA
He pointed to the “growing body of evidence that suggests that the Gupta family enjoys enormous and improper influence over President Zuma and the affairs of government”.
Maimane said Zuma needed to “explain before Parliament and the people of South Africa whether the Gupta family and others played a role, directly or indirectly, in the decision that sent the country’s economy into a tailspin”.
This, he said, was critical at a time when 8.2 million South Africans are experiencing unemployment, and the impact of the country’s credit downgrade and rising cost of living.
African News Agency
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