Hawks of Gordhan’s creation are coming home to roost

WITHOUT gloating, I am tempted to say to Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan over his travails with the Hawks: “I warned you eons back.”

Many moons ago, just before the collapse of the apartheid regime, during a national television debate with Gordhan, I said while we must all celebrate the imminent demise of this nefarious regime, we must be careful to see that the impending government of the liberation movement must not assume the diabolical characteristics of the dying regime of corruption, arrogance, incompetence, thievery and police brutality.

Even before I had finished my sentence, Gordhan jumped in to throw a ton of bricks at me for my caveats. He denounced my ludicrousness (his term) and dismissed it as irrational and baseless.

How could I be so heretical in imagining that a liberation government could behave like an apartheid regime.

Marikana was not yet on the horizon. Pravin imagined that a liberation movement govern- ment would be one composed of angels.

Today, he is crying foul when the very same state agencies that I warned him against being are hauling him to their offices for interrogation.

When the Hawks first came with their 27 questions, Gordhan could not believe that his erstwhile comrades could behave in such an uncomradely way towards him.

Poor Pravin. Then he could not fathom that even his comrades could be seduced by power. He could not discern that even he could fall victim to the arrogance of power – did he make sure before he estab- lished the so-called rogue spy unit that its creation fell within the ambit of the law?

If he did, he should not be worried. He should just provide the documents showing the legality of the unit.

He should show the Hawks that the rogue unit was created in terms of the National Strategic Intelligence Act. If he disputes the relevance of this act he must provide proof of the relevant legislation of its creation. Otherwise, he is just blowing hot air.

When some of us were loudly complaining that his government was, at times, behaving like the so-called rogue spy unit he himself created, Pravin was as silent as a cemetery.

Now that the chickens have come home to roost, he is crying like a hungry hyena. He must have forgotten that he is serving in the government of that wily politician Jacob Zuma.

Welcome to the never-never land of Zuma. Themba Sono