For the sake of our children’s future, please resign. This is an
appeal to President Jacob Zuma from billionaire Johann Rupert, who was
responding to reports that Zuma told a meeting of the ANC’s national executive
committee that Rupert flew in specially from London to South Africa in December
to scheme behind Zuma’s back.
This allegedly happened after Zuma decided to replace Finance
Minister Nhlanhla Nene with Des van Rooyen on December 9 last year.
A few days later, Van Rooyen was replaced by Pravin Gordhan. Zuma
was reportedly persuaded to do so by senior party leaders and a delegation of
businessmen.
Zuma had offered to resign as the president of the ANC on the
weekend, according to a report by the Mail & Guardian yesterday. Members of
the ANC’s NEC were quoted as saying that Zuma said they should tell him straight
out if he should resign, rather than stabbing him in the back.
Rupert commented on a Netwerk24 article, titled “Zuma allegedly
says: Tell me directly if I should step down”, that he didn’t fly out of London, as Zuma had alleged, because he
was in South Africa, acting as chancellor at a University of Stellenbosch
graduation.
Rupert is one of the first high-profile businessmen to speak out
strongly about Zuma, the ANC’s failure to act against him and the direction the
country was moving.
In his comment, Rupert implored President Zuma to “step aside and
go back to your ANC branch”, especially if Zuma believed that he flew from
London to South Africa to meet with a senior ANC leader and to demand that the
appointment of Van Rooyen was reversed.
He said that, if Zuma’s information had not come from the Guptas,
and if his information was correct, he would have known that Rupert was
attending the graduation ceremony.
“How could I, therefore, fly back? Yes, for the children’s future,
please resign.”
He said from the United States that he was “fed up” with the way Zuma managed the country.
“Now is the time for people to make their voices heard,” he
said.
Business leaders must be prepared, as they were with the previous
regime, to be unpopular, he said.
Rupert was in discussions with international businessmen and
investors, who had warned him that that South Africa’s credit rating downgrade
to junk was inevitable.
“It would mean a dollar will suddenly cost R30. The consequences
will be far-reaching.”
Ian Cruickshanks, economist at the South African Institute of Race
Relations, told Netwerk24 journalist Pauli van Wyk that Rupert’s comments were
“weighty”.
“He is the first big businessman who to say these things in public
and on the record.”
» Rupert is chairperson of
Remgro.