Will Gordhan push the red button?

Finance minister may have to pull out the big guns to win battle, writes CRAIG DODDS

PRAVIN Gordhan has a nuclear option but, for the same reason no one ever pushed the button in all the long years of the Cold War, he is unlikely to use it.

The reason is the principle of mutually assured destruction – the knowledge that the consequences of such an act would be too ghastly to contemplate.

The finance minister made a point of mentioning, the day after his reappointment to the portfolio, that he had quite been looking forward to retirement before the fateful call came.

As he is a man who chooses his words carefully – a prerequisite for a job in which a careless utterance can set the markets aflutter – it can be assumed he wanted it to be understood he could take or leave the job, if it were a matter of personal choice.

So, if things were to become untenable in the standoff between him and Sars Commissioner Tom Moyane and if President Jacob Zuma refused to intervene in a way that would make it possible for him to continue, which basically means firing Moyane, he could always resign.

The attacks on his integrity would no doubt continue for a while but they would simmer down at some point and then, sooner or later, the truth would emerge.

He has expressed his confidence that this would clear his name.

But the effect on the economy would be catastrophic and unfortunately Gordhan seems to understand this better than those who seek his downfall.

Or perhaps they understand he would do such a thing only in extreme circumstances and that this gives the lie to the notion Gordhan is unfireable and, therefore, all powerful.

It isn’t so much a question of whether the president would dare to fire him as it is a question of how far Gordhan would have to be pushed before he would call it quits.

It is also becoming clear the spectacular volte-face Zuma performed in December, which resulted in Gordhan deposing the hapless David van Rooyen in a matter of days, was more of a tactical retreat with a view to regrouping as soon as possible than an admission of defeat.

There’s an awful scraping sound in the air, of knives being sharpened.

First it emerged Hawks boss Berning Ntlemeza had sent the minister a list of 27 questions demanding a response in a more peremptory tone than would have been expected if it had been a mere clarification exercise and now, in Gordhan’s reply to Ntlemeza, it becomes clear he had tried to contact the minister the day before the questions were delivered and been told to please wait till after the Budget.

Police Minister Nathi Nhleko has said police officers should not concern themselves with questions of timing of processes in their work but, given the investigation has been under way for almost a year and the Hawks have yet to ascertain whether there was a cabinet decision authorising the establishment of the so-called “rogue” unit under investigation or whether surveillance equipment they say was bought by Sars (but not by the unit in question) was used to unlawfully intercept communications or even decide what crime it is they are investigating, Gordhan’s request for Ntlemeza to come back a few days later hardly seems to have been unreasonable.

A source familiar with police work has informed me that a docket cannot be opened on the police’s Crime Administration System without supplying the crime being investigated so that it can be correctly classified.

Gordhan’s reply to Ntlemeza refers to the case number – Brooklyn CAS 427/05/2015.

Yet Nhleko insisted the charges, in the event the investigation determined that a crime had been committed, would be formulated only at the end of the process, so he could not say what crime was being investigated. Nor would he say in terms of which legislation the investigation was being conducted, even though a letter from Ntlemeza to Minister of State Security David Mahlobo stated the police believed they had prima facie evidence of the contravention of the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of CommunicationsRelated Information Act of 2002.

The letter, leaked to the media like almost all the other information in the public domain on this matter, outlines the activities in question, relating to the illegal bugging of National Prosecuting Authority offices in what was known as “Operation Sunday Evenings”.

The problem is that this operation is alleged to have taken place from 2007, targeting then-national director of public prosecutions Vusi Pikoli, yet the list of surveillance equipment triumphantly unveiled by Nhleko this week dates from 2009 onwards, long after Pikoli was gone.

Nhleko also erroneously claimed the Hawks investigation was a culmination of previous investigations into the “rogue” unit, including the Kanyane and Sikhakhane probes initiated by thenacting Sars commissioner Ivan Pillay.

In fact those two investigations were about allegations against the former head of the unit, Johan van Loggerenberg, made by his ex-lover, former spy and legal representative for certain tobacco companies, Belinda Walters.

They concerned his alleged unlawful interception of her cellphone messages, disclosure of confidential taxpayer information to her and improper relations with the representative of companies under investigation by Sars.

Subsequently, even more elaborate allegations found their way into newspaper reports, suggesting the unit ran a brothel, spied on politicians including Zuma, posed as bodyguards and ran a slush fund.

It was only after publication of these articles and the arrival of Moyane at Sars upon his appointment by Zuma, that the terms of reference of the Sikhakhane panel were broadened to include the possible existence of a “rogue” unit in Sars and when that probe concluded there was prima facie evidence for the existence of such a unit – without Pillay, Van Loggerenberg or Gordhan being invited to give their version of events – a forensic probe by KPMG was commissioned by Moyane.

Even that appears to have been largely a desktop exercise involving perusal of documents but no interviews with the implicated parties.

Meanwhile, the lurid claims about brothels and fake bodyguards have melted away, leaving only two matters on the table: whether the Sars unit unlawfully encroached on the terrain of the intelligence agencies which, as UCT professor in constitutional law Pierre de Vos has pointed out, would not constitute a criminal offence and whether it illegally intercepted conversations, which would.

What we have had so far is selective leaking of information, most of it based on hearsay, designed to discredit Gordhan, Pillay and Van Loggerenberg, bearing all the hallmarks of a disinformation campaign dressed up as a police investigation.

It doesn’t help that two key role players – Nhleko and Ntlemeza – suffer from an Nkandla-sized credibility deficit.

So, unless charges are formulated quickly and tested in court, the inevitable conclusion is that Sars at some point stepped on some sensitive toes belonging to some very powerful people capable of manipulating the law-enforcement agencies, who are unmoved by the damage they will cause to the economy if they succeed in bringing down Gordhan.

Horrible as it may be, at some point that might make the nuclear option appear relatively attractive.

craig.dodds@inl.co.za

PICTURE: REUTERS UP HIS SLEEVE: Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan delivers his Budget speech to Parliament in Cape Town on February 24. Gordhan was reappointed to the position in December.