Johannesburg - Times have changed for South Africa’s David Douglas van Rooyen.
Ten years ago, while Van Rooyen, 47, was a small-town mayor, an angry mob burned down his house during a protest over a border change proposal that would have shifted the municipality from South Africa’s richest province, Gauteng, to the Northwest. This week President Jacob Zuma appointed him finance minister, replacing Nhlanhla Nene.
On a dirt road in the township of Khutsong outside of Carletonville, southwest of Johannesburg, some of the concrete foundation and a little bit of rubble are all that’s left of what used to be Van Rooyen’s family’s home. The plot is vacant, surrounded by similar-sized four-room houses, some with fencing, some without. While many residents live in poverty and are unemployed since the Blyvooruitzicht gold mine and other operations in the area closed down in 2013, some speak fondly of their former mayor and say his new position might change their fortunes for the better.
“To me he was a good mayor, I don’t have anything bad to say,” Mbuyiseni Hibana, regional secretary for the National Union of Mineworkers in Carletonville, said on Thursday. “The economy here is very tough. A lot of people don’t have employment.”
Rand plummets
Violet Nobanda, who’s lived in Khutsong for more than 16 years, was standing at her gate across the street when community members burned down the Van Rooyen house. Some family members still live in the same street, and Van Rooyen came to visit them on Monday, she said, while an old, static television broadcast a discussion about the former mayor’s new job.
“We are very happy about Van Rooyen’s appointment,” Nobanda said. “He will be a good finance minister.”
Until his appointment, Van Rooyen, known as Des by his colleagues, served on parliament’s finance committee and the African National Congress’s economic transformation group.
He became involved in politics in the 1980s and joined the armed wing of the ANC during its struggle against white minority rule. Van Rooyen held several leadership positions in the party after it took power in the first all-race elections in 1994, according to the website of the People’s Assembly, a group that monitors parliament. His qualifications include a master’s degree in public development and management and another in finance from the University of London, the website said.
Van Rooyen is largely unknown to investors and markets reacted negatively to the news of his appointment. The rand slumped to a record low against the dollar and the euro and yields on the benchmark 2026 bond climbed the most ever. The Congress of South African Trade Unions, the nation’s biggest labor group, said he doesn’t have the experience to run the finances of Africa’s most-industrialized economy at a time when growth is slowing and the country’s debt is at risk of being rated junk.
That hasn’t damped his old neighbors’ belief in him. Khutsong resident Lerato Meletse, who lives in a household with six unemployed adults, says Van Rooyen was supportive and visited people during funerals and other occasions.
“The economy is not progressing as it should, many of us are not working,” she said. “We hope he can help with funding small businesses because I have an interest in the catering industry and funding is an issue.”
-With assistance from Rene Vollgraaff.