{"id":139605,"date":"2016-10-11T10:27:10","date_gmt":"2016-10-11T08:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=139605"},"modified":"2016-10-11T10:44:28","modified_gmt":"2016-10-11T08:44:28","slug":"rand-tanks-as-gordhan-summonsed-on-fraud-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/139605\/rand-tanks-as-gordhan-summonsed-on-fraud-charges\/","title":{"rendered":"Rand tanks as Gordhan summonsed on fraud charges"},"content":{"rendered":"

Finance minister Pravin Gordhan has been issued with a summons on charges of fraud, according to EWN<\/a><\/strong>, relating to the early retirement of his former deputy, Ivan Pillay.<\/p>\n

EWN is reporting that it has received word that Gordhan will face charges of fraud along with Pillay and former commissioner\u00a0Oupa Magashula.<\/p>\n

By 10:40am, the rand dropped by more than 3.5%, to R14.29 following the news.<\/p>\n

The charges\u00a0follow a long silence from the Hawks and the National Prosecuting Authority, after it was revealed in August that the finance minister faced possible charges of corruption relating to Pillay’s early retirement.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the Hawks summoned Gordhan and his co-accused\u00a0to appear at its offices for a warning statement.<\/p>\n

Gordhan declined, and put the ball firmly in the court of the\u00a0crime unit\u00a0to either arrest him, or leave him be.<\/p>\n

A docket was subsequently handed to the National Prosecuting Authority soon thereafter.<\/p>\n

According to the NPA at the time, there was no timeline in place to determine whether the minister will be formally charged or not.<\/p>\n

The Hawks believe Gordhan contravened sections of the Public Finance Management Act, the Prevention of Corrupt Activities Act as well as the National Strategic Intelligence Act.<\/p>\n

The special investigations unit has also accused the finance minister of setting up an investigation unit within Sars which gathered, collected and evaluated intelligence.<\/p>\n

Gordhan has denied any and all wrongdoing, and several legal experts have said that the investigation unit simply has no case against the minister.<\/p>\n

Political insiders and economists see the Hawks’ campaign\u00a0against Gordhan as a political play by president Jacob Zuma and his supporters to get the minister out of Treasury, as part of a bid to completely capture state finances.<\/p>\n

More on Gordhan<\/h3>\n

Hawks probe aims to remove Gordhan: ANC economics head<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Gordhan: Zuma decides whether I stay, Hawks can arrest me whenever they like<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Finance minister Pravin Gordhan has been summonsed on charges of fraud, according to EWN, relating to the early retirement of his former deputy, Ivan Pillay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":134468,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121,23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-139605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139605","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=139605"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139623,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139605\/revisions\/139623"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}