Public Enterprise Minister Pravin Gordhan this week announced his intention to walk away from the national government into retirement exactly a year after his boss, President Cyril Ramaphosa, announced that his department had no future.
Gordhan, who turns 75 next month, is among a number of ANC MPs who have declared themselves unavailable for another term in the national legislature for various reasons.
Women, Youth and People with Disabilities Minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma announced in January that she would not be an MP for another term.
The ANC also has a list of nominated potential MPs who have declined nomination.
“Thirty-one comrades declined nomination. Among those are comrades who have served the movement admirably for decades and to whom we owe a sincere debt of gratitude for their contribution to shaping the first 30 years of South African democracy,” the ANC said on Friday.
Dlamini Zuma has served all heads of state in the democratic era since 1994.
Gordhan has been the political head of the department since Ramaphosa took over from his predecessor, former president Jacob Zuma, who was recalled by the ANC in February 2018.
However, following criticism of the billions of rand blown on the country’s failing state-owned enterprises (SOEs), in March 2023, Ramaphosa promised a review of the role of all departments, including Gordhan’s, which would the inform the configuration of government after the May elections.
Gordhan, a former SA Revenue Service (Sars) commissioner, was not re-elected to the ANC’s national executive committee at the party’s national conference in December 2022.
In his time as Sars commissioner, he was accused of authorising the establishment of the so-called rogue unit but the courts cleared him, both in civil and embarrassing criminal proceedings.
Under Zuma in the uMkhonto weSizwe underground and its Operation Vula, Gordhan, a pharmacist by profession, worked with several prominent activists.
The former finance minister stated his reasons for opting for retirement as the upcoming May 29 elections as well as the milestone in his age (he turns 75 on April 12).
”It’s time, after 50-odd years of activism, to continue activism in a new form, not necessarily in government. There is still a lot of work to do to entrench the values of the Constitution and, more importantly, to continue to build institutions and our country,” he said.
One of his biggest opponents, the EFF, accused Gordhan of leaving a trail of destruction in the country’s strategic entities.
The EFF said Gordhan spent his six-year tenure as public enterprises minister dismantling power utility Eskom in order to create separate entities to hand over electricity generation to the private sector.
The country’s third biggest party added that troubled state-owned rail, logistics, port and pipeline company Transnet’s operation and human capacity had reduced it to a weak institution that could not fulfil its mandate without relying on the parasitic private sector, which was only concerned with profit at all costs, including human lives.
Gordhan, who has also held the co-operative governance and traditional affairs portfolio, maintained that there could not have been a better time with the state-owned entities, which he said were in a slightly better shape than they were during the state capture period.
He said the government-owned companies now had boards and new management teams in place.
Gordhan described his retirement as an opportunity to hand the baton over.
Another of his fiercest critics, the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa), described him as “the worst minister since the advent of democracy”.
”Gordhan has single-handedly contributed to hundreds of thousands of job losses during his tenure and the destruction of livelihoods.
“He has contributed to the country’s poor economic performance because of the destruction of SOEs,” the union stated.
On Friday, Gordhan’s department stated that his retirement from active politics showed his desire to be candid so that all critical constituencies that relate to his portfolio were sufficiently informed of his plans.
Sunday Independent
loyiso.sidimba@inl.co.za