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#GordhanGupta: Frenzy as Gordhan & Co unexpectedly pitches at court

Pretoria – Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan made an unexpected stop at the North Gauteng High Court across the road from his office in Pretoria on Tuesday, where lawyers were locked in debate after Gupta-owned Oakbay and Treasury could not make a deal.

Gordhan said he was still finance minister and said he couldn’t comment on why he was requested to return from the UK from an investor tour. He had earlier visited the ANC headquarters in Johannesburg to meet the leadership.

Rumours regarding his future as minister are spiking following President Jacob Zuma’s order requesting his immediate return to South Africa, only a day after he left for his investor roadshow. Gordhan told journalists to ask Zuma why he asked him to return.

The court case, which is set to be heard for another two more days, focuses on Gordhan’s October 2016 court application, which seeks protection from intervening in the banks' decision to close the bank accounts of Oakbay.

While both parties agree that Gordhan can’t intervene, the Guptas are arguing that Gordhan should drop the case and pay costs, while Gordhan’s team are arguing that Oakbay could have just accepted the intervention, but instead chose to drag it out.

There were signs of a deal after a morning session saw the judge rule on key strike-outs in the case, but this didn’t turn out and the hearing is set to go on until Thursday.

The near deal came after Judge President Dunstan Mlambo told the legal counsel of the different respondents - which includes 14 companies owned by the Guptas, National Treasury, the Reserve Bank governor, the FIC director, the registrar of Banks, Standard Bank, Nedbank, Absa and FNB – to meet in chambers.

However, Gordhan’s advocate Jeremy Gauntlett said he regretted that no deal was struck, saying the matter was stuck on the issue of costs.

Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and an entourage f

Earlier, Mlambo granted the strike out application by Gordhan to do away with Oakbay’s allegations that his application is part of a political conspiracy as well as the challenge of separation of powers.

That was to do with an affidavit in which Oakbay claimed Gordhan told business leaders in late February to “clip the wings” of the Gupta family.

Mlambo also granted the application by Oakbay to have Mcebisi Jonas’ affidavit struck out, as well as a paragraph on the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) certificate in Gordhan’s affidavit.

Here, Gordhan had listed 72 suspicious transaction totalling around R7bn that the director of the FIC had listed in a certificate that Gordhan attached to his affidavit.

Jonas said in his affidavit in February 2017 that he met Ajay Gupta at his Saxonwold residence on 23 October 2015, who he said spoke to him directly that day.

Here, he said Gupta offered him R600m and R600 000 on that day if he would accept the position as finance minister ahead of Nhlanhla Nene’s firing on 9 December 2015.

He was responding to an affidavit by Gupta, in which he called Jonas a liar regarding his “state capture” allegations.

The day kicked off when Zuma’s legal representatives kindly declined joining the legal proceedings in the matter between Gordhan and Gupta-owned Oakbay Investments.

On Monday, Zuma entered the case, but the full bench of the North Gauteng High Court didn’t quite understand why he had entered as an interested party.

“We were surprised by your motion,” said Mlambo. “The best you can do is seek and observe.”

Asked whether Zuma would like to join as a respondent in the case, Chaskalson was quick to respond: “We don't want to join proceedings of this application.”

Mlambo concluded the matter saying: “That is a wise decision, Mr Chaskalson.”

The court deferred its decision regarding Sahara’s application on Monday, which sought to get Gordhan to pay for his legal costs in his personal capacity and not use the state attorney.

Mlambo questioned Sahara’s advocate countless times, trying to understand on what basis he was bringing the application. He didn’t appear to get a satisfactory answer.

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