Johannesburg – President Jacob Zuma's adverse intelligence report on which he based his decision to remove Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan was compiled by a former employee of the controversial Gupta family, Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema said on Wednesday.
He said the EFF was in possession of the report.
"The man who compiled the report was employed by the Guptas to work on cleaning up the image of the family and its companies. His stance was that he cannot attend to the family without fixing Zuma's image, and that was how it all came about. He is responsible for the many fake news you see online in a desperate attempt to clean Zuma's image," Malema said outside the Constitutional Court after his party submitted an application seeking a directive to Parliament to take action against Zuma, including impeachment.
The report was poorly written and not factual, he said. "We have this so-called intelligence report, we're still deciding whether to post it on the EFF website. It looks like it was written by a student of early childhood development... it is not coherent," Malema said.
"It says among other things, that the same former minister of finance in Britain organised Pravin's overseas trip, and that he is the same guys who organised EFF trip to London...that is not true. That alone tells you that someone is fabricating stories."
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Zuma's unexplained decision on Monday to cancel Gordhan's investor road show trip in the UK and the USA drew wide spread criticism, with opposition parties and the SA Communist Party (SACP) accusing the president of having no consideration for the country and its economy.
Malema said Zuma was aware of previous fake intelligence reports which were disregarded by the State and no action was taken. He added that there was no evidence in the report that suggested that interception of information was used to gather the report.
"The EFF wants the highest court in the land to order Parliament to act against Zuma, following the land mark Nkandla ruling last year. The National Assembly failed to play its role and ensure that Zuma was held accountable," said Malema.
"We hope the court will accept our application, hear the matter and instruct Parliament to hold some form of proceeding against President Zuma. The proceedings are going to be necessary because South Africans are then going to hear why Zuma made untruthful statements such as that he had a bond, and so on...he has never been held accountable by Parliament as an individual."