Our aim is to recapture the state – Gordhan
SOUTH Africa is in the throes of being recaptured, says Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan.
While key organisations and institutions of the government had been taken over by “a little clique” over the years and billions of rand “extracted” and stashed away in places like Dubai and Hong Kong, things are rapidly changing under the leadership of President Cyril Ramaphosa, Gordhan said.
“Our aim under President Ramaphosa is to recapture the state. That means if the wrong kind of board of directors was appointed at Eskom or Transnet or Denel or SAA we want to fire the old crowd and get in South Africans who want to make a contribution that will make sure that these entities run well ... . ”
Gordhan, speaking at the Tamil Federation of KwaZulu-Natal’s annual golf day in Pennington on the KZN South Coast on Sunday, said there’s a lot more to come.
“We are very determined to clean up the stables that have been dirtied.”
But there were many challenges, he cautioned.
“Those who have been stealing don’t give up the right to steal easily.
“They’re going to fight us, they’re going to resist, they’re going to make it impossible for the right things to actually happen.”
Which is why, he added, that South Africans need to back “the right side, the right people”.
“A number of good people are going to be victimised, have been victimised but these are strong people, many of them. I’m very confident that we will go beyond state capture.”
Gordhan said the country would only succeed if citizens realised they need to start sharing their wealth and expertise.
“If we don’t share, if we only focus on ourselves as individuals or as individual families then we’re not going to make it.”
Gordhan told POST Indian people need to recognise where they came from as a community.
“We were just as poor 40-50 years ago. We participated in the liberation struggle because freedom meant better prospects for us as well.
“And now that we’re living in a democracy we must recognise that there are still people who have been left behind,” he said.
“I think sharing is at the heart of most of the religions and cultures that we have within the Indian community and we need to go back to those basics and ask ourselves, how do we not just talk about it but in each of the cultural and other organisations that we have, promote non-racialism more actively, promote an understanding of diversity more actively so that we can be active contributors to building a South African nation?”
Gordhan said there was a need to also actively discourage the racism that was prevalent in society.
“Let’s reset our vision,” he said. “We need to recalibrate that spirit of non-racialism among us.
“I think if we get that spirit going, which is what kept the Indian community going through the (19)30s, ’40s and ’50s, we must revitalise that in a new form today and become participants in this process.”
His message to corrupt business people?
“Stop it. Because that’s not the culture that you want to be perpetuated when your children grow up and that’s not the reputation that you want as South Africans to actually have.”
Gordhan added it was the “same guys” getting lucrative state contracts all the time.