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Cape Town – Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan spoke frankly about the attack on National Treasury by “those who have ulterior motives to pocket public funds”.
At a breakfast show hosted by SABC, Gordhan said there are “those who seem to have the ability to buy off people for one reason or another”.
“They have an orchestrated campaign with fake Twitter and Facebook accounts and an entire channel dedicated to attack National Treasury. What is there to hide at the end of the day? And why has National Treasury all of a sudden become so important? Those are the questions South Africans need to ask in all earnestness and try to get some answers.”
Gordhan said National Treasury was just one part of government and that there are other departments such as Water and Sanitation and those responsible for infrastructure that should face deeper scrutiny.
Morning Live presenter Leanne Manas put it to Gordhan that he mentioned the word transformation altogether 50 times in his 2017 Budget Speech. “But not once did you use say ‘radical economic transformation’ (like President Jacob Zuma in his State of the Nation Address).”
Gordhan begged to differ. “I did use the word ‘radical’. I said ‘radical’ is when you get down to the root of the problem. But we need to distinguish between slogan and content.
READ: Economic transformation more than just a slogan - Gordhan
“The deeper question is what are the slogan and narrative about? Is it about genuine empowering the marginalised and poor? Or is it about the covering up of patronage where a select few benefit from the process and the marginalised are left behind? Will these slogans take us back to last year where people are trying to get access to the public purse?”
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