Manyi wants DA to approach Zondo commission with Zille’s ‘Atul letter’

Chairman of Afrotone Media holdings Mzwanele Manyi believes Democratic Alliance premier Helen Zille should follow former finance minister Nhlanhla Nene’s example of openly disclosing links to the Gupta family.

Nene resigned from being finance minister after being referred to as compromised with some questioning his integrity after he admitted to meeting with the controversial Gupta family. Nene testified at the commission of inquiry and admitted to meeting the family at least six times at their home in Saxonworld during his tenure as deputy finance minister.

Nene had previously denied that he was invited to any engagements with the family who remain at the centre of state capture allegations. He apologised to the country recently and later sent his resignation letter to president Cyril Ramaphosa.

Another controversy surrounding Nene is that he was pressured to sign off on a nuclear deal that former president Jacob Zuma wanted to get into with Russia.

The Economic Freedom Fighters have made it public that they knew all along of Nene’s links to the Gupta family.

Although they did not submit any evidence to Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo’s commission with proof, they publicly demanded Nene come clean.

This appears to have prompted the Afrotone chairman to go back in time and find a letter DA premier Zille wrote to a Gupta family member, thanking them for a contribution.

In a tweet, Manyi tags DA leader Mmusi Maimane and asks him when the party would approach the Zondo commission.

In the letter, dated May 25, 2009, Zille addressed the letter to Atul Gupta and thanked him for a “generous donation to the Democratic Alliance”.

“Your financial contribution helped us to achieve our three key objectives in the recent election; keeping the ANC below a two-thirds majority, significantly considering our position as the official opposition in parliament; and winning an outright majority in the Western Cape.

“Our support increased dramatically from the 2004 election. Then, we won 12.37% of the national vote, or 1,931,201 votes. Five years later, we gained 16.7% of the national vote, or nearly three million votes. This means that the DA grew by 34.7%.

“Thank you for standing up for strong opposition and for a positive alternative. Thank you for contributing to the real change in South Africa.”

Zille did not deny writing the letter and explained the letter was sent before she was informed of a R200,000 donation received in 2009 for the party’s election campaign which came from Stefan Nel, a Sahara Computers executive director.

Addressing reporters in parliament, she reportedly said there was nothing wrong with the donations, as there was no scandal involving the Gupta’s when the money was accepted in 2009 and early 2010.

She mentioned she wrote a letter to Zuma requesting that he appoint the judicial commission of inquiry, headed by a retired judge to investigate the funding of the The New Age.

(Compiled by Gopolang Chawane)

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