Former president Jacob Zuma is “showing the middle finger” to South Africa, a minister in the country said after it emerged Zuma had met one of the Indian businessmen allegedly at the center of a huge corruption scandal.

This week Indian media shared a photograph of Zuma and Ajay Gupta at an Indian temple.

About a decade ago, the Gupta brothers were accused of capitalizing on their close ties to then-president Zuma and influencing South African politics.

Both sides denied any wrongdoing, while the family left South Africa in 2018 after a judicial commission began investigating allegations they were involved in massive fraud, known as “state capture”.

South African authorities canceled their arrest warrant against Ajay Gupta the following year.

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

At a press conference on Friday, cabinet minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said it was “very disturbing for a former state president to openly and unapologetically show the middle finger to South Africans who have lost a lot of money through the antics of the Gupta brothers.”

Zuma, a long-time member of the African National Congress (ANC), was forced to leave office in 2018 following a series of corruption allegations linked to the Guptas. He has always denied any wrongdoing.

In 2022, a commission investigating state capture concluded that Zuma had hired and fired ministers critical to the functioning of the country’s economy at the behest of the Gupta family.

In particular, it describes the 2015 dismissal of Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene because he did not comply with the Guptas’ wishes, and the appointment of two subsequent ministers, Des van Rooyen and Malusi Gigaba, who were friendly to the family’s interests.

The commission also detailed a web of corruption at state electricity company Eskom, culminating in the Guptas’ appointment of key members of the company’s executive.

After meeting Ajay Gupta at the Indian temple, Zuma, who now leads the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party, reportedly said he would stand for re-election in South Africa’s upcoming elections.

In response, Ntshavheni said Zuma, 84, “continues to show the middle finger and claim that he wants to rule this country again.”

He also said it was a “shame” that the South African high commissioner to India, Anil Sooklal, had accompanied Zuma to the meeting with Gupta.

South Africa will launch an investigation into the meeting, International Relations Minister Ronald Lamola said.

Lamola said it appeared Zuma was pursuing “a parallel foreign policy”.

Under Zuma’s leadership, the MK party won around 15% of the vote in the 2024 election, in which the ANC lost its majority for the first time since the democratic era began in 1994, when Nelson Mandela became president.