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Cyril Ramaphosa

JOHANNESBURG. — South Africa’s Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa came out in support of Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan yesterday and said fraud charges brought against him should not be allowed to undermine his efforts to revitalise the economy. Prosecutors have ordered Gordhan to appear in court next month, in what his supporters and analysts say looks like a plot to discredit and oust a man who has defied close allies of President Jacob Zuma.

“Events of the past few days regarding summonses served on Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan have been of concern to many South Africans across all sectors of society,” said DP Ramaphosa, who is seen as a strong contender to replace Zuma when his term ends in 2019.

“I lend my support to Minister Gordhan as he faces charges brought against him by the National Prosecuting Authority,” Ramaphosa added. DP Ramaphosa said the charges had been announced as Gordhan prepared to deliver his Medium Term Budget Statement on October 26. The legal action, which shook markets and hit the rand, also comes as the country is bracing for possible credit ratings downgrades.

“Whatever the legal challenges that Minister Gordhan may face, we must not undermine the work that the government jointly with leaders of business and labour have been doing to stimulate domestic and international investment in our economy,” DP Ramaphosa said.

Despite the charges, President Zuma has also continued to express his support for Gordhan and denied talk of a rift. The ruling African National Congress (ANC) suffered its worst-ever local election results in August, widening divisions in the ruling party. Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi was quoted as saying in the Sunday Times newspaper that the decision to prosecute Gordhan was “a declaration of war.”

“We want law and order, not institutions used to fight nefarious political battles,” he was quoted as telling the newspaper. Mmusi Maimane, leader of the opposition Democratic Alliance, renewed his party’s call for President Zuma to resign and called on South Africans to join in a solidarity march in Pretoria on November 2 when Gordhan is scheduled to appear in court.

Addressing a televised news conference, Maimane said it was critical to defend the integrity of the Treasury. “Our view is that all of the machinations that are taking place are Jacob Zuma’s action in trying to gain access to Treasury . . . We can’t sit back and allow that to happen,” he said.

Legal experts have said the charges against Gordhan would be extremely hard to prove in court as they would have to show he intentionally flouted the law when he granted early retirement to a deputy commissioner at the revenue service and then re-hired him as a consultant.

The drama is unfolding as President Zuma battles in court to prevent the reinstatement of hundreds of corruption charges against him which were dropped in 2009, allowing him to run for president.

In another development, the DA became the second party to announce yesterday that it would lay charges of inciting violence against the ANC Youth League’s Collen Maine over his call to uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) veterans to take up arms to defend the president. “Maine’s statements are dangerous, callous and irresponsible. They are in direct contravention with the Constitution . . . and an insult to our constitutional democracy” said the Democratic Alliance’s Student Organisation leader Yusuf Cassim in a statement.

On Saturday, ANCYL president Collen Maine made his call at a “Hands off Zuma” march in Durban.

“Comrades from Umkhonto we Sizwe, bring your guns. Now is the time to defend the revolution. We must do it. Generations that came before did it.

They sacrificed their lives,” he told the approximately 4 000 peacefully gathered at the event. Responding to the comments, Cassim described the ANCYL as “an irrelevant organisation, existing only as a lobby group for ANC factions that are unethical enough to call on their support when it suits them”.

Earlier, Cope announced that it would open a criminal case against Maine. Cope’s spokesperson Dennis Bloem yesterday said that “Maine’s utterances may just spark the country into anarchy”. Bloem said that he would lay the charges at the Garsfontein police station on Sunday afternoon.

“Statements like those of Maine belong to the past and they must be left there.” Meanwhile, AfriForum Youth said it was consulting lawyers to decide whether to also lodge a complaint against him. “We want to be sure that if we do it, everything will be right and reasonable,” its spokesperson Morne Mostert said.

The ANC Ethekwini Region organised Saturday’s event, saying it believed that President Zuma was being targeted. The march comes in the wake of drama around outgoing Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s “state capture” report.

On Friday, Black First Land First (BFLF) protesters marched to the Public Protector’s office in Pretoria to defend the president. They carried posters reading “hamba Madonsela” and “hands off Zuma” as they rushed up to the gates of the office complex.

Others held signs accusing Madonsela of being in cahoots with the wealthy Rupert family and acting in the interests of white monopoly capital. Meanwhile, this week, Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema was handed a summons by police indicating that he was being charged for contravening the Riotous Assemblies Act.

The two charges are for contravention of section 18 (2) (b) of the Riotous Assemblies Act. The summons alleges that on December 16 2014, during the party’s elective conference, Malema incited party members to commit a crime, by occupying any vacant land they came across. A second summons indicated that he has been charged a second time for a similar transgression for making the same call in Newcastle on June 26. It was widely reported in 2014 that AfriForum had laid charges against Malema for the land invasion speech at UFS.

In reacting to the summons, EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu called the move an “apartheid era tactic”. He said the government was using a 1956 law to go after Malema. — Reuters/News24.