DA says latest allegations further demonstrate Des van Rooyen is little more than a puppet whose strings are pulled to allow access to state funds for the benefit of Zuma and his cronies The Democratic Alliance says it is to report Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA)‚ Des van Rooyen‚ for misleading Parliament.The party was commenting after a Sunday Times report revealed that Van Rooyen had visited the Gupta family compound not just once‚ but seven times‚ in the days before his appointment as finance minister by President Jacob Zuma in December last yearIt said the visits‚ on consecutive days between December 2 and 8‚ had been revealed by a team of public protector investigators tasked with probing alleged state capture by the family who used cellphone records to track Van Rooyen's whereabouts in the days preceding Zuma's decision to appoint him in place of Nhlanhla Nene. . Responding to the report on Sunday‚ the DA’s spokesman on cooperative governance and traditional affairs‚ Kevin Mileham‚ said that in a reply to a question in Parliament by the DA‚ Van Rooyen had denied visiting the Gupta’s compound in Saxonwold in the run up to his disastrous appointment as finance minister.“Yet‚ reports today indicate that van Rooyen met with the Gupta’s at their residence not once but seven times.“Clearly he was misleading in his reply and in so doing he has contravened the Executive Ethics Code‚” Mileham asserted.He said that section 2.3 (a) of the Executives Ethics Code stated that “Members of the Executive may not (a) wilfully mislead the legislature to which they are accountable”.“The DA will now report van Rooyen to the Public Protector‚ Adv Busisiwe Mkhwebane‚ for this violation of the act‚” Mileham said.He noted that details in the Sunday Times indicated that Van Rooyen’s appointment as Minister of CoGTA may have been part of a longer term plan to allow Gupta-linked companies to gain access to the more than R400 billion in municipal expenditure‚ and that van Rooyen's subsequent appointment as Minister of COGTA was merely another way for them to achieve this outcome.“These latest allegations further demonstrate that the minister is little more than a puppet whose strings are pulled to allow access to state funds for the benefit of Zuma and his cronies.“The DA will also be submitting parliamentary questions to the Minister to determine: 1. Whether there have been any discussions between himself and Eric Wood and/or Ian Whitely regarding the use of municipal assets to secure private debt financing for municipalities? 2. The nature of his relationship with the Gupta’s and their known associates; 3. Whether the Minister in fact did meet with the Gupta’s in the week prior to his appointment as Minister of Finance?“The Democratic Alliance will not allow a Minister to get away with misleading Parliament and the people of South Africa. Nor will we permit South Africa's municipalities to be looted by the Gupta’s or the ANC‚” Mileham said...