South Africa slams ex-president Zuma for meeting graft-accused Gupta

South African minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni. [Facebook, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni]

 The South African government harshly criticised ex-president Jacob Zuma Friday for meeting in India with one of the Gupta brothers accused of siphoning off millions of dollars worth of state assets.

In a video shared on social media after last month's meeting, 84-year-old Zuma also suggested he would stand for re-election after being forced out of office in 2018 under a cloud of corruption allegations.

It is "very disturbing that a former state president openly and unapologetically shows the middle finger to South Africans who have lost a lot of money through the Gupta brothers' shenanigans," cabinet minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said.

Zuma "continues to show a middle finger and claim that he wants to run this country again", she said at a media briefing.

The government has launched an inquiry into the visit, with Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola accusing Zuma of running a "parallel foreign policy".

The three Indian-born Gupta brothers built a sprawling business empire in South Africa but fled after a judicial commission started investigating in 2018 allegations that they were involved in massive fraud known as "state capture" under Zuma's watch.

In a photograph shared online, Zuma is with one of the brothers, Ajay, at a temple in the pilgrim city of Haridwar on the River Ganges. In a video from the meeting, he calls him a "brother and friend".

A 2016 graft report by South Africa's anti-corruption watchdog claims the Gupta brothers paid bribes to influence ministerial appointments and plunder state organs.

Ajay Gupta was declared a fugitive from justice in 2018 but South African authorities dropped the charges against him the next year.

The two younger Gupta brothers, Atul and Rajesh, fled to the United Arab Emirates where a court in 2023 turned down a South African request to extradite them.

"I decided to take a decision to retake the country forward," Zuma says in the video, adding: "I am contesting."

Ntshavheni said it was a "disgrace" that the South African high commissioner to India, Anil Sooklal, had accompanied Zuma to the meeting with Ajay Gupta.

Zuma, president between 2009 and 2018, now heads the opposition Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) party.

South Africa holds local government elections in November this year with the next presidential election due in 2029.