Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan has accused the politically connected Gupta family and their associates of plotting against him and the Treasury.
The allegation was contained in the minister’s replying affidavit, filed in the High Court in Pretoria on Monday. It formed part of the minister’s application for a declaratory order confirming he could not intervene in a dispute between Oakbay Investments and four banks.
A new onslaught, which follows a tumultuous 2016 for Gordhan, began again earlier this month with Oakbay Investments accusing him of using the judiciary to settle political scores and renewed calls for President Jacob Zuma to fire him.
Oakbay Investments acting CE Ronica Ragavan, in her answering affidavit, accused Gordhan of orchestrating a campaign against the Gupta family. In her affidavit, she alleged that Gordhan had given an instruction to captains of industry to "clip the wings" of the Gupta family, which had resulted in 24 businesses disassociating themselves from the Oakbay Group.
These were in addition to the country’s four largest banks, which refused to do business with the Gupta company.
Gordhan, in his answering affidavit said: "In truth, what stands revealed as the real plot is the systematic and highly organised campaign by the Gupta family and its associates against the National Treasury, myself and other targets."
He said his motivation for bringing the application was to act in the interests of the public, the economy, the integrity of the financial sector, the independence of the Treasury and to protect jobs.
In response to Gordhan’s latest application, Oakbay Investments, in a statement on Monday claimed the minister’s affidavit was a case of "reverse victim syndrome" and continued to insist that the minister had ulterior motives.
"The applicant proactively came after us and smeared our name with a flawed list of transactions — that he used his unique executive power to obtain — and then questions the manner of our response to him. All of this changes nothing. Our bank accounts remain closed and no evidence exists to prove why that is the case," it said.
The matter is expected to be heard in court on March 28.
Gordhan’s founding affidavit contained a certificate from the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) listing "suspicious" bank transactions totalling almost R6.8bn by companies owned by the family, which could have contributed to the decisions by the nation’s big banks to close their accounts.
Oakbay has argued in its answering affidavit that this does not amount to evidence and has asked the court to disregard it in its entirety.
However, Gordhan has disputed the assertion that the certificate is irrelevant and that despite Oakbay raising points about it, the company had decided not to challenge the FIC’s certificate itself.
The company argued that three-quarters of the alleged suspicious transactions occurred after the banks had taken a decision to close its accounts, therefore it could not justify the decision.
Gordhan said this argument was misdirected as his application was not about whether the banks’ decision was justified. The minister also denied that he had called a meeting of various Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed companies to discuss a conspiracy against the Guptas.
A meeting was hosted by Nedbank at its offices in Johannesburg after concerned business people approached Gordhan and asked for a meeting with government to discuss ways of fostering the economy.
"I am sure that it is well-understood, and was appreciated already at the time, that no business [whether it dabbles in politics or not] holds sway over National Treasury, its officials or its political head — myself," he said. "I did not place ‘pressure’ on ‘big business’ to ‘clip the wings’ of the Gupta family and their business."
Gordhan said there was no "bona fide" opposition to his application and that it was supported by the banks, the Registrar of Banks, the Reserve Bank and the FIC.
"Oakbay’s opposition has been shown, I submit, to be unreasonable. It sought to use a concise application as a springboard to salvage its commercial and other interests."
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