Why Malema’s charges against Gordhan are nonsense – report

A new report by News24 has fact-checked the charges that EFF leader Julius Malema laid yesterday against Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan in Pretoria.

It would appear Gordhan has no case to answer for over allegations that he supposedly has a bank account in Canada. News24 found there cannot possibly be such an account and the account number in question doesn’t even appear to exist.

Read their full report here.

Gordhan himself has already dismissed the EFF’s corruption charges against him as an abuse of the justice system and an attack on efforts to combat graft and state capture at state-owned companies.

Malema’s charge sheet claims Gordhan ordered various taxpayers to deposit large amounts into a designated account in exchange for favours. Malema claimed Gordhan opened an account at the Royal Bank of Canada with a balance of more than R665 million.

He also charged Gordhan with participating in the unlawful intelligence gathering of the by-now discredited Sars rogue unit to spy on taxpayers, politicians belonging to political parties, and other citizens.

“Their so-called ‘charge sheet’ is baseless, containing a set of lies, fake news and fabrications,” the minister said.

“It is simply their latest attack on the continuing efforts to combat corruption and theft in state-owned companies and other public institutions.”

Gordhan said by opening a case, and widely disseminating the charge sheet, the EFF was continuing its efforts to impugn the integrity and reputation of his family and threatened to sue party leaders for civil damages.

He launched a defamation suit against Malema and his deputy Floyd Shivambu on Monday, demanding R150,000 in damages, and laid charges of criminal defamation with the police. He also asked the Equality Court to determine whether recent inflammatory remarks by Malema amounted to hate speech.

Gordhan responded to the specifics of the charges by claims that he illegally set up an intelligence gathering unit within Sars were false and quoted Judge Robert Nugent, the head of the inquiry into the tax body, saying that he failed to understand why the unit was claimed to have been unlawful.

Turning to the EFF’s corruption allegations against his daughter, Anisha, he reiterated that she had not done business with the state and did not have a bank account in Canada. He added that neither did he.

Gordhan said the EFF was using a strategy of distraction and the public should ask what the party was desperately trying to hide.

He went on to accuse the party of using race as a cheap tool for political attacks and said targeting himself, the media and the Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture were “signs of a dangerous descent towards populism, political intolerance, racism and an assault on our democracy”.

(Edited by Charles Cilliers. Background reporting, ANA)

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