“There is no pressure …”, African National Congress secretary-general Gwede Mantashe told journalists on Friday as the party’s 90-member National Executive Committee (NEC) kicked off a meeting in Pretoria.

Mantashe was asked by journalists to explain if the NEC delegates have been put under pressure by repeated calls from senior politicians to act on the alleged interference of the influential Gupta family in decisions taken by President Jacob Zuma and his Cabinet ministers.

“The NEC doesn’t work that way. The ANC is having a very important document called the Constitution. It is not about the NEC working because who is the loudest (and) when. It doesn’t work that way,” Mantashe told reporters.

“The NEC works in terms of the Constitution and it executes its work in terms of what is expected of it, in terms of the Constitution of the ANC. So there is no pressure.”

The NEC meeting got underway on Friday following a turbulent week for the ruling party.

Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas dropped a bombshell on Wednesday by confirming reports that the Gupta family had approached him to take over as finance minister, a few days before Zuma fired Nhlanhla Nene from the post.

On Thursday, Zuma told Parliament that the Gupta family had never appointed any Cabinet minister.

“There is no minister who is here who was ever appointed by the Guptas or by anybody else,” he told the National Assembly.

Earlier in the week former ANC MP Vytjie Mentor said Zuma was present several years ago when the Guptas offered her the post of public enterprises minister, held at the time by Barbara Hogan.