A South African business family accused of exploiting ties with President Jacob Zuma to chose pliable candidates for top cabinet and business jobs say they have been made scapegoats for the country’s economic woes, and are victims of racist hate speech.  Laying out their case in a two-page spread in a newspaper they own, the Guptas skirted allegations that they offered the finance minister’s job to his deputy a few months ago, and tried to trade another cabinet post for business favours in 2010.  Related: Knives are out for Jacob Zuma as South Africa's Guptagate grows  Instead, under the headline “Gupta Family: The Inconvenient Truth”, they detailed the family’s history, businesses, tax contributions and role in job creation, and laid out rebuttals to other accusations.  The Guptas, who originally hail from India, arrived in South Africa soon after the collapse of the apartheid regime, convinced there would be lucrative business opportunities. Their family IT business, originally based in a Johannesburg garage, has since grown into a conglomerate that employs several thousand people.  “As the global economic slowdown began to bite, the family became the scapegoat for every calamity and misfortune that South Africa has faced,” the Guptas said in a statement. “We have been quiet until now but given the recent xenophobia and hate speech against us, now is the time to set the record straight.”  They said their relationship with the current president began in 2000, long before he came to power, and they rejected all allegations of corruption. “Our position remains: happy to face the consequences for any wrongdoing, hard though to deal with ‘whispering campaign,” the statement added.  The editorial came after Zuma’s spirited defence of his conduct in parliament on Thursday, but neither have served to contain the scandal.  On Friday the former head of South Africa’s state electricity firm was the latest to join the chorus of accusations of graft, saying that his departure from the post last year had been organised by the Guptas because he was not sufficiently pliable.  Related: South African minister claims wealthy family offered him cabinet post  “Two months after the appointment, they called me and said they will have me fired because I am not playing the game,” Zola Tsotsi told the Mail and Guardian weekly newspaper. “I was forced to resign shortly after that.”  The Gupta family – the most notable members of which are the brothers Ajay, Atul and Rajesh – has also insisted that many of the allegations against it are not evidence of corruption, but simply fallout from political infighting ahead of local elections later this year, which are already forecast to be challenging for the Africa National Congress (ANC).  “We play no role in the hiring and firing of anyone outside of our own business,” Nazeem Howa, CEO of Oakbay Investments – part of the Gupta business empire, told Reuters. “These allegations are nothing more than political gossip and innuendo.”  But that stance has enraged many in the ANC, including its secretary general Gwede Mantashe, ahead of a key party meeting this weekend.  “It’s arrogance to the superlative degree,” the BBC quoted Mantashe saying. “The threat of corporate capture is a real threat. When you corrupt individual politicians to actually act as your proxies in the ANC to become agents of business interests then that’s corporate capture.”  Zuma’s fate and his relationship to the Guptas – who have also given his son a seat on the board of several companies – is not officially on the agenda. But it is expected to be the main focus of discussion, as the ANC grapples with its worst crisis since the 2008 dismissal of Thabo Mbeki.
The Gupta family took out a two-page newspaper spread to attack ‘xenophobia and hate speech’ made against them