Between the Chains: Why did banks close the Gupta accounts?
THE Gupta family and their Oakbay group of companies have made a doomed political and public relations campaign out of their soured relations with SA banks. They may have fooled a few. But they have not dealt with the elephant in the room: why did the banks close their well-funded accounts?Since some of the country’s banks and firms fired Oakbay as a client, the Gupta family, which owns the investment company, has embarked on a campaign that it hopes will pile pressure on Barclays Africa’s Absa, First National Bank, Standard Bank, auditing firm KPMG and Nedbank to resume their services.In that campaign Oakbay has even drafted its alleged puppets in government — or at least those in cabinet who still take orders from the family — to instruct the banks to co-operate.As the Financial Mail noted a few weeks ago, only mineral resources minister Mosebenzi Zwane followed up on the “cabinet decision” by writing a letter requesting a meeting with the banks, which the banks ignored. Now labou...
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