Citizens ‘need new confidence’
• Former minister accuses Zuma of being captured, says he hopes SA will not end up at IMF with begging bowl
Former finance minister Pravin Gordhan on Thursday expressed his support for Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa to take over as ANC president and called on him to sack President Jacob Zuma.
Pravin Gordhan on Thursday said President Jacob Zuma and the ANC were captured, and called for Zuma’s removal.
Gordhan, who was axed as finance minister in March and is now an ANC backbencher, also expressed support for Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa to take over when the party elects new leadership in December.
“The Ramaphosa team must take over in December‚ and in January, they must tell Mr Zuma to go and live in Nkandla,” said Gordhan, while speaking at an event in Cape Town.
Later, he also said he hoped that SA would not have to take a begging bowl to the IMF.
Speaking at a barricaded ASI Financial Services event on inclusive growth in Alexandra township later on Thursday, Gordhan said a captured state could not play a role in creating inclusive growth.
Gordhan projected that the medium-term budget policy statement — scheduled for October 25 — may be a repeat of the difficult statement he had delivered after the 2008-09 financial crisis.
“Post 2008-09, the financial crisis caused us to move from 4% growth to below 0% as we lost R50bn to R60bn in revenue. I’m complaining because that’s what we came into,” he said.
“On October 25, are we going to see a repeat of what we saw in 2008-09?” he asked.
“I’m hoping no one goes to the IMF and asks them to please lend us money,” said Gordhan.
“We’re not a country without resources, we’re not a country without institutions,” he said.
South Africans needed to stop the rot in the private and the public sectors, said Gordhan, who called on Alexandra residents to “toyi-toyi” against the capture of the state.
“If the state is captured, can it play that role? It’s there only to serve narrow interests and the interests of a few, what kind of state is it that we have and what kind of democracy is it that we have?” asked Gordhan.
“The state plays a very important part in the change process in giving disadvantaged people leverage in these balances,” he said.
Gordhan explained that SA’s biggest concerns were monopolies and product-market concentration, saying that “there are too few big firms ...”
“Eskom and Transnet are monopolies. Where are those monopolies’ sources and creativities being directed? Where is it going? I’ll leave that to you to figure out.”
State capture and concentration of power had shaken confidence, he said. “We need to create a new confidence among both citizens, who are consumers, and businesses, which are investors ... our job is to create confidence,” he said.