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Exactly a week before his shock revelation that the Gupta family had offered him a job, Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas told a fellow deputy that the rumours were “ikaka”, or crap, Deputy Defence Minister Kebby Maphatsoe revealed to City Press.
Maphatsoe, who is also chairperson of the Umkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans’ Association, told City Press this week that on Thursday, March 10, he had boarded the same flight with Jonas from Cape Town to Johannesburg, and that’s when Jonas allegedly denied the rumours.
“He told me that there is something that was going to come out in the papers in the weekend that says he met with the Guptas. He said ‘ikaka. There is nothing like that,’” Maphatsoe said. Exactly a week later, Jonas taped a televised address and released a statement containing the bombshell admission that reverberated globally.
The strategy to defend President Jacob Zuma and his relationship with the Gupta family at this week’s meeting of the ANC national executive committee was carefully formulated this week.
Zuma loyalists completed a full-blown fightback plan into the wee hours of Friday morning, ready to squash any attempt to have the meeting discuss the Guptas, City Press has learnt from some who were involved.
Among key defenders of Zuma were the Umkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans’ Association, the leadership of the ANC Youth League, the Women’s League and individual members of the national executive committee. The arguments prepared in favour of Zuma were, among others things, to discredit those who had complained about being approached by the Gupta family with job offers. Also, the group planned to expose the “dirty laundry” of those involved in the anti-Zuma campaign, and drive the debate towards the capture of Treasury by white monopoly capital.
They also planned to probe why Jonas had waited “five months” before reporting that the Guptas had offered him the post of finance minster weeks before Nhlanhla Nene was axed.
Youth League president Collen Maine also said this week that “a man of integrity will go to his boss and report”, instead of talking to Zuma through the media. Maine said Jonas should have come clean immediately.
Women’s League secretary-general Meokgo Matuba said in a statement on Thursday that the “surprises in the media are not in line with the [ANC] discipline”.
Referring to another set of allegations against the Guptas, by former ANC MP Vytjie Mentor, Matuba said “the subsequent manner of raising further allegations which date back as far back as 2010 smacks of bad intentions that are not helping”.
Last Saturday, at the general meeting of the Gauteng Umkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans’ Association in Johannesburg, Maphatsoe said there were “people who want a regime change and they know that an attack on Zuma will divide the ANC. So, we are closing ranks in defence of not only Zuma but of the ANC.”
