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By Citizen Reporter

Journalist


Kenny Kunene: I sent an email to Guptas, but I’m funding myself

Though he has not said what his email to the Guptas was about, Kunene says it had nothing to do with needing money.


Following leaked emails that were circulated between former Oakbay CEO Nazeem Howa and Gupta brothers Tony and Atul suggesting that BLF leader Andile Mngxitama requested funding from them last year, sushi king and businessman Kenny Kunene has made fun of the scandal.

Though Mngxitama did not deny asking for funds from the Guptas, he said his only problem was around the “lies” that the funding was actually granted.

He further said the “attacks”on his movement were part of a well-coordinated strategy to undermine the “revolutionary work of our organisation”.

Twitter started creating memes about him, calling him “Mguptama”, a portmanteau of his surname and the Gupta surname. Other people implicated in the emails also had their names merged with the Gupta surname.

Kunene on Sunday said because he had also sent an email to the controversial family, “I guess now I’m a Kupta”.

His followers found his tweet funny, with some asking what he had said to the Guptas in the email. One of them asked if he, like Mngxitama, had been asking for funding.

Kunene jokingly denied he was asking for funding, saying: “I am funding myself.”

But Kunene’s correspondence with the Guptas was not a problem, according to a Twitter user, who said at least Kunene was not giving them to “our taxes”.

In a Twitter exchange with poet Ntsiki Mazwai earlier this year, Kunene bragged about his R190 million business.

“I just got R190 million for my business my suster. Thanks for support. Thing is, I know what I want and how to get it. I am not a product/brand,” he said at the time.

Mazwai had accused Kenny of getting his money from tenders and ANC connections.

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