STATE-CAPTURE INQUIRY
Deputy minister denies claim of Gupta meeting
The deputy public enterprises minister has denied he was at a meeting with Ajay Gupta in July 2015 when the suspended Eskom official was present
Deputy Public Enterprises Minister Ben Martins still needs to check his diary to see where he was in July 2017, but denies meeting Ajay Gupta that month, when suspended Eskom head of legal and compliance Suzanne Daniels was present. Martins accused Daniels on Thursday of being a liar and said he would take legal action against her. During her testimony on Wednesday at the inquiry into state capture, being held by Parliament’s public enterprises committee, Daniels claimed that Martins was at the meeting. She said President Jacob Zuma’s son Duduzane and Gupta associate Salim Essa were also present at the meeting in an apartment. Martins said he was “perplexed” by Daniels’s testimony and speculated that she could have been motivated to lie because he had criticised her performance at Eskom. He said that he wanted to appear before the inquiry to answer questions. “The truth is that I met Ms Daniels several times in her capacity as Eskom company secretary, together with the then chairper...
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