ANC and government leaders past, present and outgoing voiced their condemnation of President Jacob Zuma’s firing of Pravin Gordhan on Friday, with Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa rubbishing the reasons the president advanced for his decision.
Speaking to reporters in Bloemfontein, Ramaphosa confirmed that Zuma had presented the ANC’s top leaders with a list of new Cabinet appointments as a fait accompli, going against the party’s tradition of acting after consultation.
“It was just a process of informing us of his decision, it was not a consultation because he [Zuma] came with a ready made list,” Ramaphosa said.
“I raised my concerns and objection on the removal of the minister of finance … largely because he was being removed based on an intelligence report that I believe had unsubstantiated allegations about the minister and his deputy.”
He confirmed that the document, described as “shoddy” by the SA Communist Party (SACP), claimed Gordhan and his deputy Mcebisi Jonas, who was also fired in the reshuffle, were trying to mobilise financial markets against the South African government.
“I found totally unacceptable that such a person who served the country with such distinction would do something like that.
Earlier, African National Congress secretary general Gwede Mantashe, in an unprecedented concession, said the ANC’s top six had been unable to stop Zuma.
Mantashe told a radio station that the reshuffle made him “uncomfortable”, and that he did not know where the new Cabinet was formulated or by whom, a possible reference to Jonas’s revelation a year ago that the Gupta family meddled in ministerial appointments.
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