Cape Town – Embattled Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan on Tuesday questioned the timing of fraud charges against him.
“What is it about this country and some in this country, politicians and those in the law, who choose these times to do these things?” asked Gordan at a seminar in Midrand, shortly after the news of his pending prosecution broke.
Gordhan noted that the National Prosecuting Authority issued a formal summons against him and two former tax service colleagues just a fortnight before he is due to deliver the medium-term budget policy statement on October 26.
“There is something very attractive about budgets…,” Gordhan added.
Earlier, National Director of Public Prosecutions Shaun Abrahams told a media briefing the trusted finance minister would be charged along with his successor as SARS commissioner Oupa Magashule and former top tax service official Ivan Pillay.
Gordhan recalled that he was also targetted by the Hawks, which has led the investigation into an intelligence unit set up at SARS more than a decade ago, days before he delivered the national budget in February.
At the time he was sent a list of 27 questions to answer about the so-called rogue unit.
It led ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe to suggest that there was an attempt to undermine the minister.
On Tuesday, ANC national spokesman Zizi Kodwa warned against what he termed “conspiracy theories” surrounding the investigation, which is widely seen as politically motivated.
Gordhan himself expressed this view recently when he told Bloomberg the probe by the elite unit was “political mischief”.
But Abrahams dismissed his comments at the NPA media briefing saying “nothing could be further from the truth”.
Kodwa said: “We call on social commentators to desist making further statements about this matter… We are likely to cause further confusion in public.”
Regarding Gordhan’s comments, he urged the minister to cooperate with law enforcement and justice authorities.
“We will still continue to urge Comrade Gordhan and others to cooperate with the process.”
The Democratic Alliance said the NPA’s move to charge the minister was a blow to an ailing economy.
“The fact that the Minister of Finance, Pravin Gordhan, will be prosecuted and arraigned on charges of fraud and theft is a disaster for the economy in South Africa,” DA finance spokesman David Maynier said.
African News Agency