Former President Jacob Zuma is “showing the middle finger” to South Africa, a South African minister has said. This comes after it emerged that Zuma had met one of the Indian businessmen believed to be at the center of a massive corruption scandal.
This week, Indian media shared photos of Zuma and Ajay Gupta in an Indian temple.
About a decade ago, the Gupta brothers were accused of profiting from their close relationship with then-President Zuma and influencing South African policy.
Both sides deny wrongdoing, and the family fled South Africa in 2018 after the Judiciary Commission began investigating allegations that they were involved in a massive fraud known as ‘state capture’.
South African authorities canceled the arrest warrant for Ajay Gupta the following year.
The Gupta brothers, Atul and Rajesh, went to the United Arab Emirates, but in 2023 a court rejected South Africa’s request to extradite them.
“It is very shocking that a former president would publicly show the middle finger to South Africans who lost so much money due to the shenanigans of the Gupta brothers,” Cabinet Minister Khumbuzo Nshabheni said at a press briefing on Friday.
Zuma, a longtime member of the African National Congress (ANC), resigned from his position in 2018 amid a series of corruption allegations linked to the Guptas. He has always denied any wrongdoing.
In 2022, the State Occupation Commission of Inquiry concluded that Zuma had hired and fired ministers key to running the country’s economy at the behest of the Gupta family.
In particular, it explains the dismissal of Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene in 2015 for not complying with the wishes of the Gupta family, and the appointment of two future ministers friendly to the family’s interests, Des van Rooyen and Malusi Gigaba.
The committee also detailed a web of corruption at state-owned utility Eskom, which ultimately saw key members of the company’s management put in place by the Guptas.
Zuma, currently leader of the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party, said he would run for re-election in South Africa’s next election after meeting Ajay Gupta at an Indian temple.
In response, Nshabheni said the 84-year-old Zuma “keeps showing the middle finger and claiming he wants to rule this country again.”
She also said it was a “disgrace” that South Africa’s High Commissioner to India, Anil Sooklal, accompanied Zuma to the meeting with Gupta.
South Africa will launch an investigation into the meeting, International Relations Minister Ronald Ramola said.
Lamola said Zuma appeared to be implementing a “parallel foreign policy.”
Under Zuma’s leadership, the MK party won about 15% of the vote in the 2024 election, while the ANC lost its majority for the first time since the democratic era began in 1994 when Nelson Mandela became president.
