Mcebisi Jonas not a man of integrity – ANCYL

17 March 2016

Johannesburg – The ANC Youth League (ANCYL) has cast a shadow of doubt over Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas' public admission this week that he was offered the job of finance minister by the Gupta family.

ANCYL President Collen Maine told News24 that, under normal circumstances, Jonas would have told seniors in the party, including President Jacob Zuma, what had happened.

"A man of integrity will go to his boss and report, and [not] talk to him through the media. For us this amounts to putting the organisation into disrepute," Maine said.

Maine also questioned the timing of Jonas's announcement, suggesting that the minister should have come clean immediately after the incident was said to have taken place.

"Why didn't he raise it then, when he was invited then? What did he intend to achieve with all of this?" Maine asked.

"You don't wait for a time, particularly when the opposition is calling for a recall and you use the crisis, as a cadre of the movement, for grandstanding for popularity and begin to raise those issues."

'Gupta family can't influence ANC'

Whether or not the meeting between Jonas and the politically connected family actually took place remained a subject of debate, Maine said. "We don't know if the meeting really happened, because the Guptas are also saying something else."

However, if it were true, then people should refrain from using Zuma's name "to account for things that are said by business people", he said.

Maine also denied any insinuation that the Gupta family wielded political influence on the ruling party or its members. "We don't believe that the ANC is influenced. The Gupta family can't influence the policy position of the ANC.

"We members of the ANC, through conferences and general councils and all of that, do influence policy positions of the organisation and the Gupta families are not there in our conferences," Maine said.

The ANCYL has since called for Jonas to be recalled from his position as the deputy minister of finance. Maine said they would address the matter at the party's upcoming national executive meeting this weekend.

On Wednesday, Jonas confirmed that the Gupta family had offered him the job of finance minister, but that he had rejected it.

In a statement, he said: "Members of the Gupta family offered me the position of minister of finance to replace then-Minister Nene.

"I rejected this out of hand. The basis of my rejection of their offer is that it makes a mockery of our hard earned democracy, the trust of our people and no one apart from the President of the Republic appoints ministers."

This article first appeared on News24, see here.