Nene saga: DA pushes Jonas to break silence

DA pressures Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas to respond to a report that he was asked if he would be keen on Nhlanhla Nene’s job.

Cape Town - Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas should confirm or deny a report in the Financial Times that he was asked, through the influential Gupta family, whether he would be interested in replacing Nhlanhla Nene as finance minister, a few weeks before the latter was fired, the Democratic Alliance said on Thursday.

DA finance spokesman David Maynier, in a statement, put pressure on Jonas to make a public statement on the reported meeting in late November with the Gupta family, whose members have close ties to President Jacob Zuma.

Read: Nene's quiet exit from Parliament

“It is imperative that the deputy minister breaks his silence and makes an urgent public statement clarifying: whether he met members of the Gupta family and discussed the top post at the National Treasury; and whether he was offered a financial inducement by members of the Gupta family,” Maynier said.

“The deputy minister’s best move would be to make a public statement, rather than zig-zagging his way around the hard questions.”

In the article, published in the respected London-based daily on Wednesday, correspondent Andrew England said a claim about an approach to Jonas was made to him, but a spokesman for the Guptas denied it, while National Treasury and the deputy minister declined to comment.

“The family also denied a claim, made to the FT, that weeks before Mr Van Rooyen’s appointment they had asked Mcebisi Jonas, deputy finance minister, if he was interested in the Treasury’s top post at a meeting at the Gupta home,” the report said.

It then quoted the Gupta spokesman as saying: “There have been an extraordinary number of allegations around the Gupta family in recent weeks, several of which have involved the finance ministry. To be absolutely clear: there was no meeting at all.”

After firing Nene in December in a move that sent shockwaves through financial markets, Zuma replaced him with relatively unknown ANC backbencher David van Rooyen. Zuma bowed to pressure days later and brought trusted former National Treasury boss Pravin Gordhan back to the portfolio.

ANA