Gordhan no longer SACP member

Cape Town - Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan told a crowded press conference in parliament on Tuesday that he is not a member of the SA Communist Party, though he insisted that he is definitely not right wing.

After a discussion about the new relationship between the state and the markets in the media briefing on his Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement on Tuesday, he was asked about reports that he had been a communist.

He replied that he was an informal member of both the ANC and the SACP from the early 1970s. Informally, he explained, because there were no membership cards handed out at the time (since both organisations were banned).

"We were a generation that trained ourselves through the methodologies that Marxism had to offer. But far more important than the tag left or right, or Marxist or non-Marxist is the set of values that you believe in and how you live your life around those values.

"For me it's important that we do whatever is possible to achieve a much higher level of social justice in SA for all its peoples ... If we each one of us in respect of our jobs - me included - can do our jobs to do our damnedest to achieve the best for people, then I think you can sleep in peace.

"There's value in listening to other views, and there's value in allowing those other views to be articulated."

- I-Net Bridge