Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan had one of the most turbulent years in his career. He had threats of arrest and the economy in decline as he battled to save his political career from long knives.
Gordhan has been seen by those opposed to state capture as the protector of the independence of the National Treasury, the SA Reserve Bank and a bulwark against any destabilisation of the economy.
President Jacob Zuma spent the year defending claims that he was fighting Gordhan in a proxy war for control of the Treasury. The finance minister was moved from co-operative governance a year ago to rescue things after the disastrous appointment of Des van Rooyen.
But two months into the job, the Hawks were knocking on Gordhan’s door, as he was preparing to deliver the Budget in Parliament in February. Gordhan refused to answer 27 questions from the Hawks on the SA Revenue Service so-called rogue unit. It was this that set the tone for the seismic political battles for the rest of the year.
Those inside the ANC opposed to Zuma came to the defence of the minister when Hawks head Lieutenant-General Mthandazo Ntlemeza ratcheted up the pressure. With the ANC veterans entering the fray, the move partially turned into a bigger clash against Zuma’s early exit. This all happened as the ANC government was battling to reignite growth in the economy and attract more foreign investments.
Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies harped on the fact that more investors have come to the country, with BMW and Mercedes-Benz investing billions of rand in new manufacturing plants.
However, it later emerged that investors were sitting on a R600billion cash pile to pump into the economy. As trade union federation Cosatu put it, the investors are on an investment strike in South Africa.
It is these billions that Gordhan went looking for overseas while warding off the “trumped-up” charges.
The irony is that, a few days before he delivered his State of the Nation address, Zuma had brought together Gordhan and 80 top company bosses to work on a new economic trajectory for the country.
This team, led by Gordhan and Telkom chairman Jabu Mabuza, had to find workable solutions to reignite growth in the economy. Growth projections for the year had been revised by the Treasury, the SARB, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to less than 1percent.
Lack of growth in the economy was one of the issues identified by rating agencies to be key to avoiding a downgrade. Other than fighting to keep the economy on the right path, Gordhan had to battle the Hawks and avoid South Africa’s downgrade to junk status.
A downgrade would have compounded the country’s problems.
The Guptas’ long claws into state-owned entities posed a serious battle for Gordhan as he locked horns with several SOEs, including Denel, SAA and Eskom, over the Gupta family’s influence.
The fight was so messy that Gordhan described Denel in Parliament as belligerent in its push to merge and form a new company with the Guptas.
Eskom was also locked in another tussle with Gordhan over the Treasury’s investigation of its coal contracts with Gupta-linked companies.
After several months of behind-the-scenes skirmishes, the fight finally blew open in Parliament when Gordhan revealed that, for six months, Eskom had refused to hand over the documents required by the Treasury for its investigations.
But Eskom denied this, saying it had been co-operating with the Treasury since the investigation had begun in May. It took the intervention of Minister of Public Enterprises Lynne Brown, who instructed then-Eskom boss Brian Molefe to hand over the documents, to resolve the impasse.
Gordhan was also involved in another long-drawn-out battle with SAA over its new board and the financial management of the airline. SAA had failed to submit its audited financial statements in Parliament for two years running. This was because the airline refused to submit its financials unless it received a R5bn guarantee from the Treasury. Gordhan would not give the airline the bailout unless there was a new board.
He held out on the bailout until the cabinet reached a compromise on the SAA board.
When they were finally released, the SAA books showed that the airline had suffered a financial loss of R5.6bn in two years.
Voices backing Gordhan inside the ANC grew louder when it became clear that the Hawks were going to charge him for approving the early pension of former Sars senior official Ivan Pillay.
When the Hawks called him for a warning statement he refused, saying his lawyers had advised him he didn’t need to.
This happened when he had just returned from another roadshow overseas to convince foreign investors to pump money into the country’s economy.
But the National Prosecuting Authority finally went ahead and charged him with fraud and defeating the ends of justice.
This led to a massive backlash against Zuma and some of his allies in the ANC. The ANC veterans came out guns blazing, demanding that Zuma go.
If anything, the fight in the national executive committee in November exposed the depths of divisions within the ANC, with some of Zuma’s ministers, including Derek Hanekom, Naledi Pandor, Aaron Motsoaledi and Thulas Nxesi, backing a motion for Zuma to step down.
Hanekom’s motion in the NEC was the first and perhaps the only realistic chance of those opposed to Zuma to remove him from the Union Buildings. But Zuma’s support in the NEC won him the day and he survived the motion.
Despite the knives being sharpened by the anti-Gordhan grouping, the minister has clearly come out of the fight bruised but unbowed. He survived as a result of massive public support, which included the opposition parties, as the NPA’s attempt to charge him blew up in its face. It may well have cost NPA boss Shaun Abrahams his job.
Abrahams summed it up nicely in Parliament in November in revealing that Hawks head Berning Ntlemeza was getting agitated and had wanted Gordhan charged, and that Ntlemeza was angry when the charges were dropped.
Gordhan’s turbulent year may be over but there could be more storms ahead as Zuma continues to lick his wounds after that bruising battle in the NEC.
His support within the ANC and outside has defined the new character of the party and how battles have been fought and won with that kind of support.
The credit downgrade has been avoided. Those who failed to remove Gordhan from the Treasury have not left, but have merely retreated.
The battle could be messy in the new year and blood is likely to be left splattered on the floor.