Timing of Ramaphosa’s 4 million Dollargate, Guptas’ arrest no coincidence – analyst

Political analyst Dr. Ralph Mathekga has told The Citizen the arrest of the Gupta brothers in Dubai may be closely related to the storm surrounding President Cyril Ramaphosa over his $4 million robbery.

Ramaphosa has come under severe pressure from political parties and civil society to come clean on the robbery at his Phala Phala game farm, after former spy boss Arthur Fraser laid a complaint against him for breaching the Prevention of Organised Crime Act by not reporting the crime.

He claimed the suspects who broke into the president’s property were subsequently kidnapped, interrogated, and paid off to keep silent.

ALSO READ: Ramaphosa refuses to provide key details of $4 million robbery

As Ramaphosa feels the heat of DollarGate, the Department of Justice and Correctional Services (JCS) on Monday confirmed that the Gupta brothers, friends of former president Jacob Zuma were nabbed in Dubai.

Mathekga said the arrest of the Gupta brothers and the escalation of political difficulty Ramaphosa is currently facing has been pre-empted, are closely related and a pushback by Fraser on the improprieties revealed during the Zondo Commission the president is currently dealing with.

Timing no coincidence

He said it is no coincidence that the Gupta brothers were arrested just a week after the damning revelations by Fraser.

“These things can be very closely related in a sense that, there are those who know when they are going to be arrested and when they know when they are going to be arrested, they’ve got their own networks of people to say ‘okay release this information.’”

“It is quite a concern that these things are coming out at the same time. Clearly the release of this information by Arthur Fraser is to push back on Ramaphosa and also the Guptas because the Guptas were allied with Fraser and Zuma.”

Mathekga said Ramaphosa would have known about the arrest of the Gupta brothers.

“Ramaphosa certainly would know such kind of things would be coming, as he pushed… because with the Guptas coming in as well, worse is going to come. If you can get hold of them, they come into the country, they start revealing who they dealt with, its gonna get worse.”

Mathekga said with the information about Ramaphosa’s robbery and the arrest of Gupta brothers now in the public domain, it could be a clear indication that people are using the intelligence agency for their own personal purpose instead of focusing on what is in the best interests of the country.

ALSO READ: Guptas: High-level talks underway to bring brothers back to SA to face justice