Do you still remember when Pravin Gordhan stood in the St George’s cathedral in Cape Town in April 2017 a week after former president Zuma fired him as finance minister? When he encouraged people “to connect the dots” to understand what was happening?
That day he became a moral authority for most South Africans. He gave us hope that not everyone in the ruling party was bad. He became our hero.
Even during the short period of Ramaphoria when Cyril Ramaphosa first became president, Gordhan remained our hero, the one who stood up against corruption.
Now our hero sits before Parliament’s Standing Committee of Public Accounts (Scopa) as public enterprise minister to respond to former Eskom CEO André de Ruyter’s claims of corruption and crime at Eskom.
Gordhan used the opportunity in his opening remarks to claim that the ANC was under attack due to De Ruyter’s interview with eNCA ahead of next year’s elections. He was clearly livid about the interview and De Ruyter’s book that hit the shelves on Monday.
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Responding to allegations that the new Eskom board got involved in operational matters, bypassing senior management, Gordhan said there was no micromanaging as far as he is concerned and that there was no interference with the work of the CEO or any senior managers.
“If that is the excuse in books or interviews for the lack of performance, then it is a pitiful excuse to be utilised,” he said.
Gordhan went on to describe De Ruyter as a narcissist who let down the institution and the country and a disappointment.
But let’s go back to May 2016 when it was reported that Gordhan, who was then finance minister, would be arrested soon on charges relating to the so-called rogue unit at Sars. He asked for protection in a statement. A Facebook page called “Hands off Pravin Gordhan” got more than 13 000 likes in three days.
Now he says the narrative was that the “only hero in South Africa is De Ruyter”. Is he worried that someone else took his place as our hero? Does he even ask himself why we would turn to someone else?
Does he sit in the dark every night? Does the food in his fridge rot because the power is off for hours on end? Does he have a family member who sits at home watching the clock to see if the power will actually come back on before the inverter stops driving his oxygen machine?
Where is the man who cared enough that De Ruyter was poisoned to drive to Hermanus to see him while the board chairperson just sent a text message?
Where is Pravin Gordhan, who used to be our hero? We connected the dots and we do not see him on our side anymore. Or is it just because the lights are off?
