Johannesburg - Pressure is mounting on the ANC to act against its government ministers and members who have allegedly damaged the reputation of the party through their links to the Guptas.
On Sunday, ANC presidential hopeful and Minister of Human Settlements, Lindiwe Sisulu, wrote a letter to fellow ANC member Derek Hanekom and to the acting ANC disciplinary committee chairman asking them to consider disciplinary charges against ministers who were exposed in the leaked Gupta e-mails.
Sisulu did not divulge to Independent Media the contents of her letters but she confirmed writing them: “I have written letters to Derek Hanekom and the acting chair of the disciplinary committee.”
She made her intentions known when she addressed a banquet in memory of ANC struggle stalwart Ahmed Kathrada, hosted in Joburg on Sunday by the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation. Hanekom is the chairperson of the foundation.
In her address, Sisulu accused ANC members with Gupta links of being responsible for the low turnout of voters to the polls in the August 3 national municipal elections last year, leading to the ANC’s loss of three metropolitan municipalities of Joburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay Metro.
This comes after political parties and civil society organisations had laid criminal charges against those allegedly implicated in state capture. So far, police have yet to act against those implicated. Sisulu’s calls also come as the country awaits the outcome of a full bench of the High Court in Pretoria on an application to force Zuma to appoint a judicial commission of inquiry into state capture.
On July 4, the DA’s David Maynier laid criminal charges against Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane, Atul Gupta, Ajay Gupta, Rajesh Gupta, Ronica Raghavan and Kamal Vasram at a Cape Town police station.
The charges included racketeering, money laundering, assisting another to benefit from the proceeds of unlawful activities, and acquiring, possessing or using the proceeds of unlawful activities in terms of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act; and submitting false or untrue tax returns.
The charges follow reports that public funds were allegedly laundered through a complex web of front companies, and used to pay for Vega Gupta and Aakash Jahajgarhia’s wedding at Sun City in 2013. Public funds were reportedly laundered from a Free State dairy farm project via Dubai to pay for the extravagant wedding while Zwane was Free State MEC for agriculture.
At the time, Maynier said the fact that public funds, meant to assist the poor, were allegedly used for the Guptas' wedding was "grotesque".