Cape Town — Outgoing Minister for Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, has weighed in on the future of South Africa’s political future, as the country enters a Government of National Unity (GNU).
Gordhan, who is set to retire from politics, said the return to political power of former president, Jacob Zuma, was a dangerous time for the country and condemned his state capture-accused, Tom Moyane and Nathi Nhleko, who are both members of the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party.
Gordhan said the return of the three to active politics and Gordhan, who played a pivotal role during state capture, questioned why people would allow anyone who could take the country back to the state capture era, EWN reported.
“Haven’t we learned as a country yet? The kind of damage that has been caused, the kind of time it takes to recover. And we haven’t recovered yet.” he said
“What gives you the right to come along and resurface some of these people, so they can go back to the same institutions and destroy them again.” he added.
Gordhan said it was a spit in the face of those who worked so hard to save the country from the grips of Zuma.
Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan has warned against corruption, and what he calls a rise of a counter-revolutionary force. He was speaking at the second day of the NUM national policy conference. Newzroom Afrika’s @NqobileMadlala_ speaks to Electricity Minister… pic.twitter.com/M4hYga9rWE
— Newzroom Afrika (@Newzroom405) June 12, 2024
Gordhan also said state-owned entities (SOEs) have suffered as people without the right qualifications were appointed to leadership roles, and they have mismanaged state resources, IOL reported.
People didn’t have the skills and were concentrating on other things rather than making those SOEs work effectively and today or in the recent past, we’ve paid the price for it,” he said.
He said many SOEs such as Eskom, Transnet, and SAA, are still blighted by state capture and said government should put strict measures in place to protect SOEs to avoid state capture 2.0.
“Our biggest failure, our biggest failure is implementation, our biggest failure is at a local government. Our biggest failure is that we want to use every institution in the state, and I’m going to come back to this.” he said.
“We need individuals that we know so that if we want money from them to win elections in our branch, in the province, or the region, we get the money to pay activists to vote for us, that’s the truth,” he added.
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Compiled by Matthew Petersen
