From collapsing State-Owned Entities to being responsible for protracted load shedding, Pravin Gordhan must be remembered for what he wrought, writes Kavi Pillay.
By Kavi Pillay
Pravin must never have his Churchill moment; he, like Churchill, must have his story told with all the blood and gore they both left in their wake; Churchill was a mass murderer, Bengal, Dresden and likewise Pravin left a similar trail of destruction in South Africa.
Robin Renwick:
— Izwe Lethu (@LandNoli) July 9, 2019
To go from Mandela to Zuma was a tradegy.
He was overthrown by:
1. Thuli Madonsela (PP)
2. Pravin Gordhan (FM)
3. Civil Society
4. Press
5. Judiciary
Thank God Cyril won. I said to him your problems are ANC.
SA has a President who's committed to Constitution. pic.twitter.com/N58do2L0cr
The above video is when the handler of the colony Robin Renwick sings his praises along with Thuli Madonsela for saving South Africa from “State Capture”.
Imagine Raytheon or Boeing allowing a concept like “State Capture” to be allowed in the US Government, they earn billions from the State; yet in South Africa where clearly we have issues with the English language; our media, judiciary ran with it. Despite it being completely unheard off and nonsensical — but that’s Pravin.
Subsequent to this video Pravin was made Minister of Public Enterprises and more especially Eskom; which he subsequently collapsed. He proposed unbundling, fired/hired CEOs, got rid of the Chief Procurement officer and was basically running the utility like his uncle’s stuck shop.
Unparalleled load shedding ensued, as soon as he took over in 2018; he fired the CEO and then set about destroying Eskom.
South Africa suffered the worst load shedding in History under Pravin; in fact load shedding only ended towards the 2024 election when Pravin retired.
Coincidence? I think not.
He destroyed Eskom; same with Transnet because he was the de facto Board and Executive running two state owned Entities like his uncle’s tuck shop.
People died under load shedding; ventilators stopped working; accidents happened when traffic lights didn’t work; the already stagnant economy suffered a devastating blow but Pravin didn’t bother.
Unbundling or privatisation was on the cards…
Needless to say his daughter’s business interests in Calulo and FFS refiners had nothing to do with diesel Eskom was buying but who knows really? I don’t.
Recall when his supposed qualifications were questioned publicly and someone from KZN University issued a letter saying he had one, only to be fired the next day? Weird right, when was he actually a pharmacist?
Pravin was integral to Cyril’s rise to the ANC presidency; some may say an active fundraiser. That relationship was always skewed; as an example when the ANC resolved to move Eskom to Gwede Mantashe; Pravin convinced Cyril not to do so; Pravin was more important than an entire ANC policy conference… apparently.
Interestingly the #ThumaMinaMediaGroup the notorious WhatsApp for media to disseminate Cyril’s messaging to the media was run by Pravin’s people (Tasneem from GCIS and Adrian Lackay from SARS); Pravin’s people were managing Cyril’s campaign to some extent.
Then there were the Rogue Unit accusations; Pravin was accused of spying on people using the resources of SARS.
Naturally, books and commissions disprove this; yet when Andre De Ruyter claimed he was being spied on nobody in the media could remember who was accused of running the Rogue Unit… nobody in our media.
Then there’s he’s stint as an author; for some reason he was at a book signing for “My Presidents Keeper”… why was he signing someone else’s book; surely someone thought this was strange.
As with Andre; CEO after CEO left the entities he was running into the ground… SAA, Transnet, Eskom etc etc
It got so bad, he didn’t release the Annual Financials for SAA for years; then he tried to sell SAA for R51…
The question remains how did nobody in the ANC NEC stop this monster? If he really did run the Rogue Unit, he would have tonnes of dirt on these guys one would imagine.
Must be the arrogance then; remember when he mocked ANN7 journalists… anyone else would have been lectured to and charged by any number of NGO’s and OUTA’s for free speech and governance — but not Pravin.
Pravin magically absolved himself from anything and everything; there’s a BB&D IT tender at SARS that ran into billions, but he was never charged; unlike the MEC for Economic Development in KZN who’s charged for an arms deal signed by Trevor Manual and Thabo Mbeki…
Teflon Don, really.
Pravin was defended by Natasha Mazzone in parliament; she’s from the DA; yet she defended Pravin while his own party ignored him; one might just get the impression he was working for someone else.
But where’s his money? The EFF claimed it was in Canada but that would be easy to trace; someone as arrogant as Pravin wouldn’t do that.
What he might do is make his cadre Mcebisi Jonas chairman of an asset management business run by a blonde foreigner to keep an eye on his money. This blonde foreigner might have tried to bribe a sitting president to step down. Now all of this is speculation, since this blonde doesn’t publish whose assets she’s managing; could be state funds that she got the mandate for when Pravin was in charge of PIC; but she doesn’t disclose that she manages state funds so we’ll never know…
Pravin was a monster; any attempts to paint an alternative picture is to make Churchill a war hero instead of a mass murdering psychopath.
Remember everyone who died during unnecessary load shedding… because he wanted to sell Eskom.
* The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.