Not convinced by Gordhan
PRAVIN Gordhan is portrayed by the media, business, his political comrades, public, and himself as the defender of liberty, the constitution, the economy and the rand.
The Independent on Saturday columnist, William Saunderson-Meyer, compares him with brave Horatius who alone defended Rome’s bridgehead against invading enemy legions.
Saunderson-Meyer says Public Protector Thuli Madonsela is a hero, who “like Horatius, never flinched” from a “steady stream of insults and abuse from senior ANC figures (and) threats against her life”.
But is Gordhan like Horatius or Madonsela?
Last week he told the Hawks: “Stop the bloody nonsense (and) let me do my job.”
The theory is the Hawks are persecuting him on made-up charges at the behest of President Jacob Zuma and/or a proZuma cabal intent on capturing Treasury.
That the Hawks and those who are possibly giving them orders might be capturing the state by attacking Gordhan is nonsense, but dangerous to the economy and rule of law.
There is no doubt Gordhan is brave insofar as that word may be applied to one who has the backing of his lawyers, a former judge, his department, his party (SACP), business, media and civil society. But is he the hero and martyr the media are making him out to be?
Gordhan is a committed and ideological communist, cadre and politician. The ANC/SACP/Cosatu alliance is ideological regarding the National Democratic Revolution and their black nationalist agenda. They are hard-nosed about protecting Zuma, includ- ing over the Nkandla Constitutional Court judgment.
They are hard-nosed about not blaming Zuma for the ANC’s election failures, and they are hard-nosed about taking only “collective responsibility” for the problems they have caused South Africa – that is, no blame is apportioned to anyone.
There is, particularly among (white) media and analysts, a tendency to sing Gordhan’s praises (and Nhlanhla Nene’s and Trevor Manuel’s before him). Why? Because he is doing the job he is paid to do.
However, he does not cut a sympathetic figure because he is a tough politician and one of the culprits that brought us to this pass. He, too, stood by all these years while the alliance and their rent-seeking friends pillaged the country’s coffers and the ANC misgoverned.
In April, Gordhan, like the committed cadre he is, voted with other ANC members not to impeach Zuma. Gordhan supports Zuma and Zuma has “confidence” in Gordhan.
I can’t believe he is as inno- cent as he and his supporters claim – I don’t mean the Hawks trumped-up allegations, but of being a participant in a mighty political battle playing out within and among the ANC and SACP.
State capture and corruption within government, which we are led to believe he is fighting tooth and nail, was a factor when he was finance minister from 2009 to 2014, after which he was shuffled off – “demoted” – to Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs.
So unless state capture and the forces intent on “sabotaging the economy” alarmingly increased in the interregnum until his reappointment as finance minister in December 2015, I don’t credit Gordhan’s Damascene commitment to now fight it with all his might.
Gordhan’s protestations of victimhood and honourable intentions will not convince me until he owns up to his part in internal party conflicts that are destabilising the country. THOMAS JOHNSON
Lansdowne