Cape Town - A war is looming between the ANC Youth League and Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan after the ANCYL accused him of failing to transform the National Treasury.
The league said it would lobby President Zuma to redeploy Gordhan to another position as the Treasury “under his watch continued to protect white monopoly capital”.
The ANCYL threatened to embark on an overhaul of the Treasury.
It called on the institution’s financial gurus to either “shape up or ship out” so that it could pursue a radical developmental agenda for the country.
The ANCYL made the remarks during a media briefing in Joburg yesterday, following the release of the Competition Commission’s report on the banks on Wednesday.
The report highlighted collusion by 17 international and local banks, including Standard, Absa and Investec, in alleged manipulation in the trading of foreign currencies including the rand.
The matter has been referred to the Competition Tribunal for prosecution.
ANCYL secretary-general Njabulo Nzuza said banks, among other financial institutions, continued to enjoy Treasury protection.
“The Treasury is one institution that has been created to protect white monopoly capital for quite sometime,” he said.
“And it is becoming evident now why they had continued to enjoy support.
“One thing the apartheid government did when we crossed over in 1994 was to make sure that the Treasury and its management continues to serve and protect the interests of white monopoly capital,” he said.
Since his deployment to the critical position, Gordhan “has not acted to ensure that we restructure”, Nzuza said.
“Now we want a different kind of leadership calibre that will have appetite to dismantle the approach of protecting banks and capital in South Africa”.
“Where is the state bank today? We have consistently said as the ANC that there must be a state bank.
“Because there are people who are sitting on top of those things, it is not going to happen,” said Nzuza.
“Now that is part of the reasons we are saying Comrade Pravin must be redeployed somewhere else.
“Get someone who’s going to start cracking the whip in Treasury, make sure that the people in Treasury are people who are going to have the appetite to pursue the development agenda of South Africa and not to protect white monopoly capital.”
The league wanted all the banks involved in the collusion to be fined 18% of their annual turnover, “considering they collapsed the rand to nearly R18 to the US dollar”.
ANCYL spokesperson Mlondi Mkhize said: “It is quite interesting that ‘collusion’ happens when the pigmentation is white, when it’s black it’s ‘corruption’.
“None of you in the media want to correct that.
“We can’t afford to have a media that always bashes our government but when wrong things happen in the private sector, everyone keeps quiet as if everything is fine.”
League president Collen Maine said they would not take the matter lying down so as to appease investors.
“If they must go to hell, they can go to hell, the investors, because we cannot allow people to manipulate our currency and we treat them with kid gloves.
“We cannot succumb to the pressure of criminals.”
Treasury spokesperson Yolisa Tyantsi refused to comment.