Gordhan: Zuma touted nuke deal as early as 2011
Public enterprises minister tells inquiry former president did not heed warnings over now-axed Sars boss
Former president Jacob Zuma pushed for a nuclear deal with Russia that could have cost SA more than R1-trillion as early as 2011, according to public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan.
In an affidavit filed at the Zondo commission into state capture, where he will give evidence later in November, Gordhan has revealed how Zuma indicated to him in 2013, when he was finance minister, that SA “needed nuclear power and that a process should be initiated to procure it”.
The potential deal with Russia, at a time when experts were arguing that nuclear was neither needed nor affordable, was at the centre of much of the political intrigue and allegations of corruption during the Zuma era, and would be a factor in the firing of two finance ministers. The removals shook confidence and fuelled a slump in the rand.
Gordhan said he had responded by saying that “it would be appropriate to follow lawful procurement procedure for such an expensive project”.
A year later, he was removed
Former president Jacob Zuma “appeared reluctant to personally intervene” in the war between public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan and Tom Moyane, and end the “lack of accountability’’ from the now axed commissioner of the SA Revenue Service (Sars).
This is what Gordhan has said in his submission to the commission of inquiry into state capture, chaired by deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo.
President Cyril Ramaphosa told the Constitutional Court last week he had axed Moyane as this was in the best interests of Sars and the economy.
Moyane maintains he was the best Sars commissioner in the history of democratic SA and that findings against him by an inquiry headed by retired judge Robert Nugent are part of a politically motivated “witch-hunt”.
Now Moyane’s lawyers are contemplating whether they will apply to cross-examine Gordhan about his testimony to the Zondo inquiry, in which he portrays the former Sars commissioner as a key player in a politically driven campaign to force him to resign and strongly suggests he was complicit in “capturing” Sars.
“Reflecting on the period [from] 2009 to 2017 now, it would appear that I was witness to events … and it seems an unwitting member of an executive in the earlier part of this period, which was misled, lied to, manipulated and abused in order to benefit a few families and individuals, release the worst forms of recklessness and corruption, rob ordinary people of schools, clinics and education, abuse and decimate key institutions of our democracy including Sars, the Hawks, NPA [National Prosecuting Authority], SOEs like Eskom, Denel, Transnet etc; and damage the economy, increasing joblessness, forsaking the youth and increasing the marginalisation of women,” Gordhan says in his submission to the inquiry.
He says he was a victim of the capture of the Hawks, which motivated for his criminal prosecution over an early retirement deal given to former deputy Sars commissioner Ivan Pillay.
The case was dropped by the NPA days before Gordhan was due to appear in court.
Gordhan also reveals how Zuma’s attorney, Michael Hulley, “attempted to mediate the dispute” between him and Moyane on the then president’s behalf.
He says he told Zuma he “objected” to the Hawks’s attempts to charge him with crimes linked to the “rogue unit” investigation. “During that meeting, I objected strongly about this persecution and asked former president Zuma whether political activists like myself must now prepare to be eliminated during the democratic era even though we had survived the oppression of the security police in the apartheid era.
“In response to my objection, he [Zuma] merely flipped through the pages of the letter [sent by the Hawks to Gordhan]. He said he would discuss the matter with then minister of police Nkosinathi Nhleko. I received no information from the former president in this regard,” Gordhan says.
He also says he raised alarm bells over Moyane’s leadership in 2015, telling Zuma Moyane’s “role at the Sars’’ was one of three concerns that needed to be “discussed by us and resolved as soon as possible”. The other two were the proposed nuclear deal and the “ongoing dire financial predicament of SAA and, specifically, the role of the chief of the board, Ms Dudu Myeni”.
None of those issues, it would appear, were resolved when Zuma fired Gordhan as finance minister in 2017.
Moyane’s attorney, Eric Mabuza, said the former commissioner had not been notified that he was implicated by Gordhan’s statement, nor had he received a copy of it. “If and when we are informed that the commission considers Mr Moyane to be implicated by minister Gordhan’s testimony, we will certainly consider applying to cross-examine him.”