A former finance minister, Trevor Manuel, said on Wednesday the economy would be “destroyed” if Zuma fired Gordhan, after he changed finance ministers twice in one week in December.
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“We’re concerned because people are being unjustly involved in criminal prosecutions which we know are not valid”, Bizos told reporters.
Analysts have said that Zuma’s team and the Treasury under Gordhan have disagreed about government spending, including at loss-making state companies like South African Airways.
“If you require further information, however, you are welcome to approach us again because the Minister has instructed us to assist wherever we can”, the lawyers said. “They see him as a credible finance minister”.
The Hawks instructed Gordhan, and two former Sars employees – Ivan Pillay and Johann van Loggerenberg – to present themselves to their office in Pretoria on Thursday, so they could make warning statements.
The stand-off has seen the rand weaken significantly and raised fears of a backlash from worldwide rating agencies.
According to reports, the Rand dropped almost three percent of its value not long after the news broke, with the national currency breaking through the R14 against the US Dollar mark on Wednesday morning.
Financial markets and the currency tumbled following that decision and President Zuma was forced to remove Mr van Rooyen as finance minister and offer the job to Mr Gordhan.
His statement ended: “I have a job to do in a hard economic environment and serve South Africa as best I can”.
National Treasury spokeswoman Phumza Macanda confirmed to AFP in an email that Gordhan had been summoned in “correspondence from the Hawks yesterday”. The minister refused to comply, saying he wasn’t legally bound to do so and had done nothing wrong. “Let me do my job”.
“With predictions of zero growth in 2016, stubbornly high unemployment, persistent poverty and inequality and a volatile currency, this is not the time, if there ever was, to be playing such unsafe games”, 21 economists at four of the country’s leading universities said in a statement. The law only allows for a three-year contract, according to documents seen by the African News Agency.
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In December past year, President Jacob Zuma sacked the then finance minister, Nhlanhla Nene, replacing him with a little-known MP, David van Rooyen.
