Former South African Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said he expects to be charged over an investigative unit set up when he ran the revenue service as a battle rages in the African National Congress to choose a successor to President Jacob Zuma as party leader in December.
Gordhan, who was fired by Zuma in March, made his comments on Thursday, a day after a police unit known as the Hawks told his predecessor at the Finance Ministry, Trevor Manuel, and his then-deputy, Jabu Moleketi, to provide affidavits on the creation of the tax service’s division by Friday.
“They will probably charge us, let’s see what happens,” Gordhan said at a conference in the Austrian Alpine village of Alpbach. “We’re not just sitting back and taking punches. We’re going to resist all of these things because at the end of the day it’s not about our individual futures, it’s about the future of younger generations.”
The National Prosecuting Authority has been probing the unit in an investigation that Gordhan, opposition parties and civil-society groups say is politically motivated. The former finance minister described the latest moves as an attempt to discredit politicians who oppose Zuma and are fighting against the plunder of state resources in Africa’s most-industrialized economy.
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