Dondo Mogajane is set to pursue new opportunities outside the public sector after his contract as treasury director general expires. (Image via Treasury)
After five years serving as treasury’s director general, Dondo Mogajane will leave his position in June.
Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana announced Mogajane’s departure from treasury, where the director general has worked for 23 years. During his tenure as director general, Mogajane led the treasury alongside Malusi Gigaba, Nhlanhla Nene, Tito Mboweni and Godongwana as his ministers.
Mogajane will leave the treasury on the expiry of his current contract to pursue new opportunities outside the public sector, according to a statement issued by the finance ministry.
“Under his leadership, the treasury has successfully navigated unprecedented challenges,” the statement read.
“He has been a dedicated and committed leader who has guided the department in delivering on its mandate of ensuring fiscal sustainability and he is leaving at a time when public finances are recovering from the Covid-19-induced shock.”
In his foreword to the budget, tabled in February, Mogajane took stock of the state of South Africa’s economy after enduring the pandemic’s onslaught, saying “there is light at the end of the tunnel”.
The budget indicated a major milestone in returning the country’s public finances to a sustainable position, revealing that the treasury expects to achieve a primary surplus by 2023-24.
Mogajane joined the treasury in 1999 as a deputy director. In the years before his appointment as director general in 2017, he worked in various areas in the department including intergovernmental relations, provincial budget analysis and international economic relations.
Between 2007 and 2010, Mogajane represented South Africa at the executive board of the World Bank as a senior advisor for the Africa Group 1 constituency.
Mogajane went on to serve as the chief of staff in the finance ministry and later as the acting chief operating officer from May 2014 until May 2015. In June 2015, he was appointed deputy director general responsible for the public finance division at the treasury.
According to the ministry’s statement, Godongwana thanked the outgoing director general “for his tireless efforts and wishes him well in his future endeavours”.
A process to recruit a new director general has already commenced, the statement noted. “The treasury has a deep reserve of skilled officials with extensive experience, who will continue to deliver on the service delivery obligations of the department.”