It's not a crime to meet with ministers - Ajay Gupta

Pretoria - One of the Gupta brothers says there is a witch-hunt against the family and their meetings with Cabinet ministers are being used to peddle lies.

"Everyone meets with ministers but when the Guptas meet with the minister it is wrong. Why is the Gupta family being targeted?" Ajay Gupta asked during a recently-leaked interview with Stephen Grootes of EWN which was recently posted on YouTube.

The interview was conducted in February this year and part of it was posted on YouTube in November.

Grootes and other parties involved had to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

In the interview, Gupta answered questions on the family's relationship with President Jacob Zuma, his son Duduzane and ministers Des van Rooyen and Mosebenzisi Zwane.

Asked about the family's relationship with Zuma, Gupta said it was not wrong for them to be friends with the president.

"Having a relation is not an issue, it is whether he is doing something that is the most important for everyone. I can say categorically, say that we never asked [for anything] so why would he be doing anything for us?

Evasive response

"If you can bring one person who can say we asked the president to do anything [then do so]," he said.

During the interview, he denied having met Van Rooyen prior to him being appointed to the position of finance minister. That was despite former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela's  State of Capture  report indicating otherwise.

"Let me categorically say I have never seen him before he became a minister and one day after being made a minister, one of my colleagues reminded me that we saw him at one of the gatherings and he was standing next to Mr Kebby [Maphatsoe]. We also made a presentation to MKMVA [Umkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans Association] and he was there and recognised us first," said Gupta.

Speaking about the Waterkloof Air Force Base landing scandal, Gupta was very evasive in his response but claimed that they had been given permission. He also did not divulge who had given permission for the plane to land.

"No aircraft can land without any permission; it cannot come into the airspace. It had nothing to do with the president. All processes were followed during that time," he said.

This article first appeared on News24