Johannesburg - At least one of the two officials fingered in the government’s report on Guptagate denies she was part of any plot to obtain irregular approval for the landing of a private jet carrying Gupta wedding guests at Waterkloof Air Force Base.
According to SA National Defence Union national secretary Pikkie Greeff, Lieutenant-Colonel Christine Anderson was never interviewed in the course of the investigation by a team of high-ranking officials.
If there had been a “proper investigation”, Greeff said, Anderson’s innocence would have been established.
Greeff said she had instead been sent a list of four questions, to which she had responded, but in at least one instance the question had been framed in such a way that it got “the wrong answer”.
The report says chief of state protocol Vusi Bruce Koloane had claimed in a statement he met Anderson and a member of the Indian High Commission at Waterkloof on April 24, but that Anderson “denies the meeting ever took place”.
“Clearly, someone is not telling the truth,” the report says.
But Greeff said the question had been specifically whether or not a meeting had taken place on April 24.
“The answer to that is ‘no’,” Greeff said, because the meeting had happened on April 22.
“This highlights the flaws of the investigation. If you’re not willing to sit in a proper forum under representation then you’re going to get the wrong results,” Greeff said.
The public were expected to accept that whatever the report said had been told to the investigating committee, but there was no public record of the questions and statements to be interrogated.
Greeff said it was “almost like a secret investigation”, designed “to come to a certain conclusion”.
This would be tested when a proper process took place, but in the meantime Koloane and Anderson had been accused in public.
Greeff said Anderson had confirmed to him during a consultation after the release of the report on Wednesday that the term “number one” was used by officials as a reference to President Jacob Zuma.
He could not say in what context Anderson had first learnt that “number one” had known about the landing, as she is quoted as saying in the report, because she was waiting to face formal charges.
But there was “no way she took part in any manipulation of process” as alleged in the report.
Justice Minister Jeff Radebe told Parliament on Wednesday there was “incontrovertible evidence” that would stand up in court showing Koloane and Anderson were “not fall guys”, but “masters of the manipulation of process”.
Meanwhile, Public Protector Thuli Madonsela is likely to decide on Friday whether or not to launch her own investigation into Guptagate.
Her spokeswoman, Kgalalelo Masibi, confirmed on Thursday that her office had received a copy of the government’s report on the debacle, but Madonsela was in Ethiopia and would be returning only later in the day.
She would then be briefed by her team, which had been studying the report, before making a decision, Masibi said. Radebe said he had furnished the public protector with a copy of the report, as she had requested, “in the interests of transparency and our desire to bring this matter to a satisfactory closure”.
Madonsela had been asked by DA MP David Maynier to investigate the matter as he feared the government investigation, by a team of directors-general, would fail to look into the role of members of the executive, including Zuma, in the granting of permission for the Gupta wedding guests to land at the Waterkloof.
Maynier said on Thursday that the final report “reinforces the need for an independent investigation”.
Political Bureau