Cosatu slams Gigaba move

TRADE union federation Cosatu said newly appointed Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba is not the right person for the job as he doesn’t have an economic background.

President Jacob Zuma axed Gigaba’s predecessor Pravin Gordhan and his deputy Mcebisi Jonas late on Thursday‚ a move that has been criticised by some of the party’s top leadership.

Gordhan and Jonas’s removal formed part of a Cabinet reshuffle that caused shock waves around the country.

“Gigaba is no economist. We need to bring more progressive economic thinkers in that institution so they temper the hard-line neo-liberal position of the past.

“Gigaba is not going to formulate policy as a political head. He is going to provide political leadership to people who are in charge of analysing the global economic situation‚” Cosatu spokesman Sizwe Pamla said.

“Look at the people who have been there at Treasury and look at how that institution transformed those people.

“They came in there as deployed members of the ANC‚ understanding what the ANC and the alliance partners were saying‚ but when they got to the institution‚ they were transformed into components of neo-liberalism themselves‚” he said yesterday.

Pamla said the federation’s leaders were not informed about the reshuffling of Zuma’s cabinet‚ but learnt about it through the media as they were out of the country.

“That is also something to reflect on and ask, ‘What does it mean?’ and then deal with the issue without being really petty.”

Cosatu was expected to hold a special central executive committee (CEC) meeting yesterday to discuss the implications of Zuma’s cabinet reshuffle.

As a tripartite alliance member‚ Pamla said it would be unfair to pre-empt the outcomes of the meeting as members have different views on the matter. — TMG