Johannesburg - A “loyal” South African Air Force officer stands to lose her entire pension and service benefits - eight months before her scheduled retirement - after being named as one of the two key people in the Guptagate scandal.
On Sunday night the family issued a midnight apology to the nation, their second following the unprecedented fallout from their decision to fly in their wedding guests to the SAAF base on a chartered Airbus.
In it they promised to face the consequences of any probes.
The apology won’t help Lieutenant Colonel Christine Anderson, a 25-year SAAF veteran, the “movement control officer” at the base tasked with greeting VIP arrivals.
“Everybody knows her (Anderson) as a dedicated person,” said Pikkie Greeff, the spokesman for the SA National Defence Union (Sandu). He had recently spoken to her and said she was shattered by her suspension.
Anderson was one of the three SANDF officers - along with Brigadier-General Leslie Lombard and Brigadier General Tebogo Samuel Madumane - who were placed on compulsory leave in the aftermath of the Waterkloof landing. As a “movement control officer” at the base, her duties included meeting VIP guests as they deplaned and serving them refreshments. She did not have any executive authority for landing clearances or flight plans, said Greeff.
On Sunday night the Guptas again apologised for landing the chartered A330-200 at the Waterkloof Air Force Base last month and promised to face the consequences.
A statement sent out by the family spokesman Gary Naidoo said: “Our intention was simply to provide our daughter with a memorable wedding. In the process, perhaps some misjudgments may have been made.
“For that we, as the Gupta family, wish to once again reiterate our apology for any embarrassment or inconvenience caused by the landing of the aircraft and the events that followed.”
Senior government officials loyal to President Jacob Zuma allegedly struck a deal with suspended chief of state protocol Vusi Bruce Koloane that he be sacrificed to protect the executive arm of government’s image ahead of next year’s elections.
Government sources told The Star on Sunday that the full report into the scandal was “tailor-made” to exonerate the executive at all costs and to never directly blame the Guptas, as doing so would implicate Zuma by association.
Suggesting that an independent judicial inquiry appointed by Parliament was the only vehicle to shed light on what actually transpired, they said the directors-general appeared to have been deliberately appointed to probe the scandal as there was no way they would find their bosses guilty.
Justice Minister Jeff Radebe accused unnamed officials of dropping the names of Zuma, Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula and others in a bid to exercise “undue influence”.
The public servants who spoke to The Star were either directly involved or were briefed by relevant officials. They described the report as a “fallacy” as it implied that the affected ministers had no idea of what went on in their departments and that Koloane was supposedly in charge.
Releasing a summary of the report at a media briefing in Pretoria on Sunday, the seven-member cabinet team, led by Radebe, blamed the scandal on “collusion, abuse of privileges and manipulation of processes” by officials.
Sources claimed that officials had promised to look after Koloane and his family if he took the fall.
Greeff called for an independent probe and for the Guptas to be charged for colluding to land the aircraft at the military base. As long as the government departments investigated the matter themselves, they would always protect their own heads, he said.
He said Sandu were “seriously considering” laying a charge themselves and taking legal action to force an independent inquiry.
“It’s free to any member of the public to go into a police station and lay a charge against the Guptas,” Greeff said.
He also questioned why Anderson was continually named by the inter-departmental report as she was not a senior officer and had not been called to answer questions. “She (Anderson) has already been on record through her lawyer to the chief of the Defence Force that any time an investigation needs her, she will appear,” he said.
Radebe denied any wrongdoing by the executive and dismissed suggestions of a cover-up. He and his colleagues brushed aside claims of a whitewash and refused to answer direct questions, referring journalists to the yet-to-be released report.
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