The spectacular fall of a man who was once one of the best

Rarely in the modern era has a politician risen to the heights of his powers, earning the admiration and gratitude of his compatriots, only to crash and burn like a meteor. Pravin Gordhan’s fall from grace has been stunning.

Gordhan was once regarded as competence personified. Suave, self-assured, one of the best of the new breed. He commanded an understated authority, and seemed totally comfortable in his own skin. But things have gone awry for the pharmacist from Durban. The wheels are coming off. He is at the centre, if not the driver, of all that is going wrong in the country. His star has waned. There are calls for him to be sacked from a cabinet that can only be described as a collection of incompetents. To be singled out as the worst of a bad bunch is damning.

Gordhan earned his reputation as commissioner of the South African Revenue Service, transforming a jaded and anaemic institution into one of the best run and most admired organisations in the world. It became the pride of the country, collecting oodles of money for the fiscus. Only a miracle worker can transform a tax collector into an admired institution, and Gordhan did it. The success of the project also had a wider political significance — that transformation did not necessarily mean the lowering of standards, and that the new leaders were up to the job. Gordhan was obviously not alone. The likes of finance minister Trevor Manuel and Tito Mboweni at the Reserve Bank also reassured the sceptics and naysayers that our finances — and the country — were in good hands. A new cadre of capable leadership was at the helm.

When Jacob Zuma, after his watershed victory in Polokwane, appointed Gordhan finance minister, the markets rejoiced — at least an adult would be in charge of the money — and a still-stunned public heaved a sigh of relief. He lent some credibility to what was a patently corrupt administration. And after the dismissal of Nhlanhla Nene, his successor, and the doomed and short-lived appointment of Des van Rooyen, it was Gordhan who again came to the rescue to save the National Treasury from the clutches of

Zuma and the Guptas. But he became too much of a stumbling block for Zuma. And when he was summoned back from an international roadshow by Zuma and subsequently fired in the middle of the night, the anger in the country was palpable. There was a feeling Zuma had overstepped the mark; he had to be stopped. He was gone within a year. Gordhan had to run a gauntlet of investigations by the likes of Shaun Abrahams, Berning Ntlemeza, Tom Moyane and Busisiwe Mkhwebane — all Zuma flunkeys who blamed him for their hero’s downfall. His persecutors are all gone now. He’s still standing. He retains all the trappings of power, but he’s shorn of all credibility.

Given his record, there was hope when he replaced the beleaguered Lynne Brown at public enterprises, a department critical to economic growth and which, under Zuma, was the Guptas’ feeding trough. On top of staunching the corruption, it was hoped he’d turn the ship around. He’s done none of that. Instead of changing course, he seems to have put his foot on the pedal and the wagon is fast racing to the abyss. By all objective accounts, things are worse now than when he took over four years ago. Transnet is a shambles and leaderless. SAA fell from the sky despite millions of taxpayer money ladled into it. In fact, pouring millions into SAA, in the midst of so much poverty and starvation in the country, was not only highly irresponsible, it was criminal.

But Eskom is where Gordhan’s dead hand is most noticeable and disastrous. Every one of us is a victim of his incompetence. Though it would be unfair to blame load-shedding on Gordhan, just as it was ridiculous for the ANC to heap it all on André de Ruyter, Gordhan is fully responsible for the deterioration since he took over. Despite its situation being dire, Eskom has been without a chief executive since De Ruyter resigned 10 months ago. This week it was announced that the chair was leaving too, apparently after a fallout with Gordhan over the appointment of a new CEO. Things are falling further apart. The two parastatals that are the fulcrum of the economy are without leaders. And those in charge seem blasé about it, with no sense of urgency.

Then this week President Cyril Ramaphosa casually announced that South Africa was ready to mediate in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Surely he can’t be serious! He’s head of a government that can hardly run a tap or keep the lights on, and yet he thinks that somehow that qualifies him to bring peace in such a conflagration. He seems to be suffering from some sort of cognitive bias, overestimating his abilities.

Gordhan’s transformation is mystifying. A man known to be a competent pair of hands who helped to inspire some confidence even in Zuma’s dishonourable administration has turned into a dud. Everything he touches now turns to dust. He also looks tired, haggard, almost defeated. Maybe all that persecution, including a scathing racist campaign by the EFF, is finally taking its toll. The EFF called him prime minister, not as a compliment, but to infer that he’s got the president by the short and curlies; he’s the power behind the throne.

Calls for Gordhan to step down or be fired, while understandable, are woefully inadequate and probably misdirected. They seem to imply that he is the only rotten apple in the box. The whole bang shoot should go.