{"id":123757,"date":"2016-05-16T15:34:55","date_gmt":"2016-05-16T13:34:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=123757"},"modified":"2016-05-16T15:34:55","modified_gmt":"2016-05-16T13:34:55","slug":"zuma-stronger-than-ever-looking-for-any-way-to-get-gordhan-out-analyst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/123757\/zuma-stronger-than-ever-looking-for-any-way-to-get-gordhan-out-analyst\/","title":{"rendered":"Zuma stronger than ever – looking for any way to get Gordhan out: analyst"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Jacob Zuma is stronger than ever – and is looking for any avenue to get finance minister Pravin Gordhan out of office, according to economic analyst, Peter Attard Montalto<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to a research note penned by the Nomura analyst, having captured security, police and prosecuting structures – and having his recent scandals buried by ANC party structures – Zuma is at his strongest point since the sacking of Nlanhla Nene in December 2015.<\/p>\n

Montalto noted that Zuma’s presidency has come down to “tenderpreneurs” – who are supporting the president – and the “anti-tenderpreneurs”, behind finance minister Pravin Gordhan.<\/p>\n

Gordhan was reappointed as finance minister following the unexpected axing of former finance minister Nhlanhla Nene by Zuma – a move which sent South Africa’s market crashing, wiping as much as R500 billion from the economy.<\/p>\n

The ill-conceived moved put Zuma under scrutiny, limiting his freedom in hiring and firing within his Cabinet as he sees fit.<\/p>\n

Like Nene, Gordhan has implemented policies in Treasury which limits the unchecked spending of money, putting a cap on the ‘bottomless’ well of money that many state-owned companies had relied on to bail them out.<\/p>\n

Speculation is rife that this has put tension on the relationship between Gordhan and the president, who has many known “friends” in top positions at SOEs.<\/p>\n

According to Montalto, “Zuma is hunting for any route to remove Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan – which should be hard but not impossible.”<\/p>\n

The Sunday Times reported this weekend that the Hawks investigative unit was preparing for the “imminent” arrest of Gordhan, on alleged charges of espionage, relating to an investigation into a so-called ‘rogue spy unit’ at SARS – an investigation supported by Zuma and initated by his SARS placement, commissioner Tom Monyane.<\/p>\n

Reports on the matter said that following Gorhan’s arrest, Zuma would move to reshuffle Cabinet.<\/p>\n

“All sides have since denied there is anything going on\u201a with the Presidency also denying any imminent reshuffle,” said Montalto.<\/p>\n

“However\u201a it is assumed that any arrests should take place after the 3 August local elections so as not to disrupt ANC chances then.”<\/p>\n

“Pravin Gordhan has to successfully defend against every attack; President Zuma ultimately has to win only once,” he said.<\/p>\n

The analyst said further that market indicators and the potential scuppering of the economy isn’t a guaranteed deterrent for Zuma’s antics.<\/p>\n

“There are many around President Zuma who dismiss the risks of market dislocation and of downgrades\u201a see investors and ratings agencies as \u2018counter-revolutionary\u2019 and think the President should be pursuing a more inward-focusing agenda instead.”<\/p>\n

“In other words\u201a market forces are not a total deterrent,” he said.<\/p>\n

More on Zuma and the ANC<\/h3>\n

Secret UK military plan to keep the ANC in power: report<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Gordhan arrest off the cards \u2013 for now: report<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Gordhan arrest \u201cimminent\u201d: report<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

ANC has lost massive support in Gauteng: report<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Jacob Zuma is stronger than ever – and is looking for any avenue to get finance minister Pravin Gordhan out of office, according to economic analyst, Peter Attard Montalto.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":106747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26,6397],"class_list":["post-123757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline","tag-zuma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123757"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123761,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123757\/revisions\/123761"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}