ANC Deputy Security General Jessie Duarte.
President Jacob Zuma told top ANC leaders that he wanted to fire Pravin Gordhan as finance minister as far back as November last year, but was persuaded to delay his decision by the ANC’s top six officials, the governing party has admitted.
On Wednesday, ANC deputy secretary general Jessie Duarte revealed that Zuma began consultations with them on his desire to axe Gordhan just weeks after the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) dropped fraud charges against the finance minister.
The NPA had charged Gordhan with irregularly approving the early retirement of South African Revenue Services employee Ivan Pillay.
Duarte spoke to journalists after the ANC held an extended national working committee (NWC) meeting at its headquarters in Johannesburg this week.
“We’ve known for quite a while. The president indicated in November that it was his wish [to axe Gordhan] … he was persuaded by us that we should wait a while. He explained his reasons then, that the relationship between himself and Gordhan was not good. So we did know,” Duarte said.
She also confirmed that Zuma again consulted the top six before sacking Gordhan in the early hours of last Friday. Last week, the Mail & Guardian revealed that the officials had learnt about Zuma’s intention to fire Gordhan in the ANC president’s closing address to a bilateral meeting last Monday with its tripartite alliance ally, the South African Communist Party.
Duarte also confirmed that the party’s integrity commission had not asked Zuma to step down as head of state. “The integrity commission withdrew the letter on the basis that the letter did not represent a resolution. The letter had been faxed late at night and some members [of the commission] only saw the letter at the meeting and on that basis asked for it to be withdrawn,” she said.
ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe rubbished reports that the commission made a similar recommendation to Zuma when they met him at the end of last year. “There is no December report from the integrity commission. The president only had a meeting with commission and that will be followed by another meeting on April 9,” he said.
Appearing to retract his criticism of Zuma’s reshuffle last Friday, Mantashe said the NWC agreed that: “The public dissonance was a mistake that should not be committed again.”
Asked if he withdrew his remarks at the NWC meeting, Mantashe said no.
He also denied that he and the party’s deputy president, Cyril Ramaphosa, and treasurer general Zweli Mkhize had to apologise for their public statements.
Ramaphosa described Zuma’s decision to axe Gordhan on the basis of an unverified intelligence report as “unacceptable.”
Mkhize said Zuma’s attempt to have the ANC top six legitimize changes to the Cabinet which they were not consulted on, meant the ANC was no longer at the centre of power.
