NUMSA’s response to Pravin Gordhan’s retirement as the minister of Public Enterprises is “good riddance to bad rubbish”!
9 March 2024
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) is overjoyed that Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan, the worst minister since the advent of democracy, has decided to retire from politics. We cannot wait for him to leave, in fact, as NUMSA we volunteer to help him pack his bags. It is an absolute pity that he cannot leave sooner.
Just like the hit song by Miley Cyrus, Gordhan came in like a wrecking ball in 2018 and he has wrecked every single State Owned Entity that he touched. We said in our previous statement that he has a ‘deadly Midas touch’ because everywhere he goes, SOE’s collapse and workers suffer. He claimed he was turning around SOES’ unfortunately, most of them are in ICU or have died because of his involvement. It is a painful irony that Gordhan once served as a member of the South African Communist Party Central Committee because his actions have been a relentless and brutal attack on workers and their families. His values are the opposite of Communism and its noble ideals, which are to advance and to improve the lives of the working class.
Gordhan is entirely self-serving and he is the worst performing minister ever to hold the portfolio of Public Enterprises minister. Those who have had the misfortune to work closely with him describe him as a bully, and a person who interferes in the day to day running of organisations. At SAA he interfered directly with the board, and we saw this type of irregular interference at other SOE’s as well. He does not respect the principles of corporate governance at all.
Currently, Gordhan is trying to bully parliament into covering up the ‘dirty deal’ with the Takatso consortium. He has stubbornly refused to publicly disclose the details of the SAA Takatso deal, and he is abusing the principle of confidentiality.