Cape Town - President Jacob Zuma came out in defence of the Guptas, took a swipe at former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela and lashed out at opposition parties for politicising the work of the rating agencies in their review of South Africa’s credit worthiness.
Zuma told Parliament on Wednesday that the action of the four major banks against the Guptas was suspicious.
This followed the closure of the accounts of the Guptas by the banks early this year.
But Zuma, who was answering oral questions in the National Assembly, said the government had to act against the conduct of the banks.
He took a swipe at Madonsela for her report into state capture, which implicates him.
Zuma accused Madonsela of not giving him an opportunity to respond to the allegations.
Zuma said the four-hour meeting he had with Madonsela before she compiled her report was centred on processes followed in the investigation.
He said they spent the four hours arguing on what needed to be done, but they did not seem to find common ground.
This led to Madonsela to issue her report, which he said he will contest in court.
Zuma also fired a broadside at opposition parties in the country in the work of rating agencies to review the credit worthiness of South Africa.
He said many countries including the UK, France, Turkey, Brazil and Russia were recently downgraded by the rating agencies but there was no noise.
The president said the noise in South Africa was because parties politicised the work of rating agencies.
The agencies will announce their results next week.
Moody’s, Fitch and S&P Global Ratings were in the country recently for another review.
Zuma said they have met with the rating agencies, and they will make their decisions soon.
The question and answer session with Zuma was the last one for the year after many of his appearances have been disrupted by the EFF.
The EFF had decided to boycott the sitting because it said the party did not recognise Zuma as South Africa’s head of state.
EFF deputy leader Floyd Shivambu described Zuma as a criminal and said they will not allow Parliament to be addressed by him.
In the Chamber, Zuma said everything was done to fix the state of the economy.
He said South Africa was not unique to the world when it comes to economic slowdown.
He said even major economies were still recovering from the economic meltdown, and there was no country not feeling the effect.
The government was working with business and labour to get the economy back on track.
Political Bureau