CHAPTER 10
It took only five days for sanity to prevail as an avalanche of protest hit Zuma’s desk.
Pravin Gordhan has been appointed as the minister of finance, replacing David van Rooyen who was put in the seat four days ago.
The Presidency issued a statement on Sunday confirming the appointment.
"I have received many representations to reconsider my decision. As a democratic government, we emphasise the importance of listening to the people and to respond to their views,” the Presidency said in a statement.
"I have appointed Pravin Gordhan, the current minister of cooperative governance and traditional affairs as the new minister of finance. Minister Gordhan will return to a portfolio that he had held proficiently during the fourth administration."
Van Rooyen who replaced Nhlanhla Nene will be transferred to the Cogta. He was appointed on Wednesday and sworn in on Thursday amid mixed reactions from the country. The move also saw the rand plummeting to its lowest mark in years.
"I have also decided to appoint the current Minister of Finance David van Rooyen as the new minister of cooperative governance and traditional affairs. Mr Van Rooyen, a former executive mayor, will also be bringing to Cogta the finance and economic sector background gained in serving in the Finance Portfolio Committee and Economic Transformation Cluster as whip in National Assembly. He has been mandated to take forward the Back to Basics programme and further improve cooperation between the three spheres of government,” said the statement. The rand recovered almost 80c to the US dollar on Sunday evening following the appointment of former finance minister Pravin Gordhan in his old post.
The move follows the shock axing of Nhlanhla Nene last week and the broad fallout on South African markets.
Gordhan was appointed as the new finance minister in an about turn just four days after David van Rooyen took over from Nene.
The rand recovered to R15.09/$ from R15.88 immediately after the news broke late on Sunday, after the unit briefly breached R16/$ in nervous trade on Friday.
The Presidency announced in a statement on Sunday night that Gordhan and Van Rooyen will be switching portfolios.
President Jacob Zuma said that he made the change following several representations to reconsider his decision. " As a democratic government, we emphasise the importance of listening to the people and to respond to their views.
" I have appointed Mr Pravin Gordhan, the current Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs as the new Minister of Finance."
Zuma highlighted 6 areas in which Gordhan will lead government again:
Adherence to the set expenditure ceiling while maintaining a stable trajectory of our debt portfolio, as set out in the February 2015 Budget.
"I have also decided to appoint the current Minister of Finance, Mr David van Rooyen, as the new Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs," stated Zuma. Last night, alliance sources said there was a strong possibility that Myeni might be removed from the SAA board as part of the damage control mission.
On Friday, Barbara Hogan - a former cabinet minister - became the first high profile ANC leader to publicly break ranks with Zuma, calling for him to be removed from office.
Other senior ANC officials such as secretary general Gwede Mantashe were eerily silent.
Nene himself told the Sunday Times that he was just protecting the Fiscus and was quoted as telling the treasury staff to 'hold the fort' at his farewell meeting with the department.
In just three days, a petition to have Zuma removed from office under the hashtag #ZumaMustFall had gathered over 100 000 signatures and marches were planned against the president.
Zuma, after days of silence and prevarication, finally had to face the fact that he had made a major error of judgment and had no choice but to back down.
For someone who projects himself as a political 'strongman', this represents a devastating moment. It shows that he simply does not have the power that he believed he had accrued in the party and in society more broadly.
Even though it was Zuma's prerogative - as his supporters were quick to point out - to hire and fire cabinet ministers, this could not be done against the tide of public and market opinion. This is the beginning of the end of Zuma politics - the practice of placing the interests of a small clique of greedy backers ahead of those of the party and the nation.
Zuma has lost his political aura and now the vultures will circle ever more tightly and the possibility of an early recall looms large.
Next year, the ANC faces an election where Zuma will clearly be a liability because there will be a protest vote against him and the ANC. This is not likely to represent a big swing, but in marginal cities such as Nelson Mandela Bay and Tshwane, it might open the way for the ANC to lose power to coalitions.
Zuma's crazy antics could cost us our independence
2015-12-16 08:39
Allister Sparks
President Jacob Zuma must go. Yes, he has backed down in the face of national outrage, including that of leading members of his own party, at his summary replacement of his highly regarded Finance Minister, Nhlanhla Nene, with a political nonentity named David van Rooyen. That at least gives us a moment of respite.
But who can have confidence on Zuma's judgment any longer? Not since Caligula made his horse a consul has there been such an insane governmental appointment. Yet such a decision, taken at a time of impending economic crisis, seems to have taken Zuma totally by surprise. He didn't expect the rand to plunge to a record low of R16 to the US dollar. He didn't expect the investment community, foreign and domestic, to be appalled. He didn't expect the JSE to nosedive, with major commercial bank shares falling between 16% and 20%.
Why did Zuma do this? I think he did so because he has become intolerant of opposition. He has got away with so much, from the arms deal to Nkandkla to his new presidential jet; he felt he had reached the point where he could make his wish his command.
The voters and taxpayers of South Africa expressed their views on the ANC and Zuma’s mismanagement of the fragile economy.
I've no doubt he was miffed that Nene was standing up to his special woman friend, Dudu Myeni, who is doing her best to fly South African Airways into the ground. Perhaps she asked him to do something about it. But as Nene himself has implied, it was the Minister's refusal to sign off on a deal with Russia to provide South Africa with nuclear power without first doing a cost-benefit analysis of the project that was the real issue.
The projected cost of the project is said to be in the region of three trillion Rands and Nene has said repeatedly that South Africa can't afford it. But Zuma is thought to have reached a private agreement with President Vladimir Putin and is determined to go ahead with it.
Why is he so determined? This pitches us into the realm of conjecture, and I can only speculate. I believe Zuma has never liked dealing with the West and has become increasingly exasperated by his inability to understand capitalist economics - especially those pesky rates agencies. So he wants to turn his back on them and let Putin - who in turn is eager to reestablish Russia as a global superpower - draw SA into his circle.
