Gupta lieutenant Ashu Chawla — said to be
the "mastermind" at home affairs — has left the country, despite
being out on bail on charges of corruption.
He will
therefore will not appear before a parliamentary inquiry into state capture at
the department of home affairs before parliament rises on Friday for a recess.
Acting home
affairs director-general Thulani Mavuso confirmed on Thursday that Chawla was
out of the country and said that the question of whether he had broken the
conditions of his bail was up to law enforcement authorities.
The bail
conditions for Chawla and his seven co-accused in the Estina dairy farm
corruption case are that they report to the police stations in the areas in
which they live twice a week‚ surrender their passports‚ not interfere with any
witnesses and not leave the provinces where they reside.
Chair of the
home affairs committee, Patrick Chauke, was adamant on Thursday that Chawla
would be required to appear before the inquiry into the naturalisation of the
Gupta family when the committee sat again in October. He proposed that the
speaker of the National Assembly, Baleka Mbete, be asked to approve the issue
of summons against him.
He said from
the evidence presented so far it was clear that Chawla was the
"mastermind" at the department of home affairs. "Chawla will
have to appear as everything revolves around him," Chauke said.
A string of
departmental officials — Richard Sikakane, Norman Ramashia, Major Kobese and
Gideon Christians — appeared before the inquiry on Thursday to testify to how
members of the Gupta family were granted citizenship, even though they did not
meet the requirements and despite the fact that the application for five Gupta
family members had been rejected.
Naturalisation
for Ajay Gupta, his wife Shivani, his mother Angoori Gupta and his two sons,
Kamal Kant Singhala and Surya Kant Singhala, was granted after Chawla appealed
to home affairs minister Malusi Gigaba on behalf of only three of them, for
approval of the naturalisation on account of "exceptional
circumstances".
Ajay Gupta
and his wife Shivani’s names were not included by Chawla in his letter of
appeal but were added by home affairs officials for "family" reasons.
Ajay Gupta was ultimately not naturalised as he refused to revoke his Indian
citizenship.
The appeal
was approved in record time of less than a month. The departmental officials
recommended to Gigaba that the appeal succeed and this was the source of
"the mess", Chauke said.
MPs were
critical that the officials made this recommendation to Gigaba without
conducting a due diligence of the claims made by Chawla that the Guptas had
invested R25bn in the country, and had created 7,000 jobs, which they hoped to
increase to 100,000 jobs.
Chawla, the
CEO of Sahara Computers, also had a friendship with Christians, the head of the
immigration division at the South African High Commission in New Delhi, who
helped him obtain visas for employees. The allegation has been made that
Christians was the Guptas’ man in New Delhi.
While
Christians admitted to having a friendship with Chawla dating back to 2008, he
denied that Chawla was given preferential treatment. He said he had friendly
relationships with other captains of industry in fulfilment of the commission’s
strategic mission to promote investment in SA.
When
confronted with an e-mail to Chawla in which he shared internal departmental
information containing state secrets about foreign postings, Christians said he
could not recall having sent it.
Kobese was
instrumental in getting Christians appointed to the position in New Delhi but
denied that there had been any interaction with Chawla regarding this posting.
He admitted, though, that Chawla had approached him to assist with bottlenecks
in getting visas. Kobese said his brother was a businessperson with links to
Chawla.
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