“Government will not abandon the fiscal path that we have chosen in the last few years”, Zuma said in a statement.
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However, this trend was reversed on Sunday after Gordhan was reappointed as finance minister.
The party said while it saw the appointment of Gordhan, who was previously finance minister, before being made minister of co-operative governance, as a move to restore some confidence in South Africa’s economy, it appeared as though the announcement was merely a result of Zuma having to bow to internal pressure.
“It may stop the rot short term but I’m not sure it’s really going to turn the situation around and make anybody really that much more happier about South African investments”, Nigel Rendell, senior EMEA analyst at Medley Global Advisors, said by phone from London. The highest-profile ANC member to oppose Mr Nene’s removal, she said that the president had crossed a line and needed to be held to account.
Former Sunday Times editor and columnist Ray Hartley on Sunday night called the latest decision the end of “Zuma politics”, which he said was prioritising “greedy backers”.
South African President Jacob Zuma, under fire for sacking his finance minister, took the unusual step Saturday of denying that a romantic relationship had anything to do with the move.
INSIDE STORY: What’s behind South Africa’s economic troubles?
The Presidency announced in a statement that Gordhan and Van Rooyen would be switching portfolios.
Credit agency Fitch downgraded South Africa on December 4, leaving the continent’s most sophisticated economy just one notch above junk status.
The Sunday presidency statement said van Rooyen would become the new minister of cooperative governance and traditional affairs.
The growing scandal surrounding South African Airways (reported last week by TP) is threatening to destabilise the country’s government, which has just named its third finance minister in a week. It is understood that Zuma changed his mind yesterday shortly after returning from the ANC’s Mpumalanga provincial conference in Nelspruit.
G-24 Chairman and South African Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan convenes the Group of 24 Minister’s meeting at the IMF’s Headquarters October 7, 2010 in Washington, DC.
The widely respected Nhlanhla Nene lost the post last week, shortly after rebuking SAA chairwoman Dudu Myeni, a friend of president Jacob Zuma.
Gordhan’s appointment will also put to bed speculation that South Africa will veer off from its cost saving policy, that Treasury is easily influenced by political agendas, including that it will budge and approve a controversial renegotiation of SAA’s Airbus deal.
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– Other opposition parties, such as the Democratic Alliance say Zuma is playing “Russian roulette with the country’s economy”, while the Economic Freedom Fighters says, “Effectively, the country has had three finance ministers in one week…”
