The Guptas and their SA collaborators must pay back the money - Gordhan
Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan has borrowed the phrase often used by his arch-enemy, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), to call on companies and individuals accused of looting SOEs to refund the state.
CAPE TOWN - Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan wants the controversial Gupta family and their collaborators to follow the lead of firms like McKinsey and "pay back the money".
Gordhan has borrowed the phrase often used by his arch-enemy, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), to call on companies and individuals accused of looting SOEs to refund the state.
The minister made the call while tabling his department's budget in the National Council of Provinces on Thursday.
Gordhan focused his address to the upper house of Parliament on the massive damage inflicted on SOEs by various companies and their collaborators.
He suggested that those who looted coffers through state capture were to blame for damaging SOEs like SAA and Eskom and not the current regime.
“All of us must focus our undivided attention to those who stole our money, to those who actively collaborated, to those businesses and professionals who enabled this theft and to those professionals and others who dedicated their energies to defend the corrupt,” Gordhan said.
He said that it was imperative that those complicit in looting, pay back the money.
"Trillian, Impulse and others, including the financial and legal firms that assisted in these nefarious processes, to follow this example and of course, the infamous Guptas and their South African collaborators, we must, in a singular voice say, pay back the money,” said the minister.
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