In case you are not clear on this. When they write “state-owned companies”, they mean companies paid for by you, the SA tax payer.
But who are the Guptas? They are the family clan who owns The New Age newspaper. They have been hosting speakers like the big Prez (your humble shower buddy Zuma himself), the Justice Minister Jeff Radebe and Public Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba for publicly broadcast interviews.
The Sunday papers say:
– Transnet forked out R17.5m for 18 breakfast sessions;
– Eskom paid R7.2m to sponsor six sessions (at R1.2m each) between November 2011 and last year; and
– The SABC doesn’t charge The New Age a cent to broadcast their breakfasts live on SABC2.
The SABC – better known as the SA Broadcorping Castration – is disputing this.
These accusations come in the same week that the National Energy Regulator of SA (Nersa) held public hearings into Eskom’s proposed 16% tariff hike. Eskom’s sponsorship for The New Age breakfasts was paid from its 49M… wait for it… “energy-efficiency” initiative budget. Sounds as though Trevor Noah could have wrote that line.
Gupta family spokesman Gary Naidoo said he found it “very strange and unethical” that the Sunday papers focused on their clients. “These same clients appear in your newspaper and it would seem your questions are driven by the fear of losing market share. It would seem that your motive is one of finding a mechanism to place a ‘chilling effect’ on those clients who have bought into our vision of being proudly South African, and fiercely independent through the publication of news in a balanced fashion.”
The multimillion-rand sponsorships were revealed by Gigaba in response to a parliamentary question by DA MP Kenneth Mubu. Mubu said the newspaper was an “ANC Gazette”, and Transnet and Eskom’s dealings with it compromised the government’s image.
“The New Age’s owners have a very close and cosy relationship with President Zuma,” Mubu said. He said it was wrong for government to sponsor the newspaper’s business breakfasts.
This will not come as a massive surpirze, but we need to state that Zuma is a family friend of the Guptas. The Prez’s son, Duduzane, serves on close to ten boards with members of the Gupta family, including Sahara Holdings and Shiva Uranium.
One of Zuma’s wives, Bongi Ngema, is the communications and marketing head at the Guptas’ JIC Mining Services.
We will bet good money that his is not even the tip of the iceberg, the ears of the hippo or the end of this story…
