state capture inquiry
‘Godongwana told me I was getting a Gupta minister,’ Lungisa Fuzile tells inquiry
The former Treasury DG tells the Zondo commission that the new minister’s advisers were likely to be of ‘Indian descent’ and would ‘control the minister’
The night Nhlanhla Nene was removed as finance minister in December 2015, the then Treasury director-general, Lungisa Fuzile, said he was told a "Gupta minister" had been appointed. Nene was fired by former president Jacob Zuma on the evening of December 9 2015 and replaced with little unknown ANC backbencher Des van Rooyen. The appointment caused turmoil on the markets, wiping out approximately R500bn from the economy. Zuma was forced to remove Van Rooyen four days after his appointment and replaced him with Pravin Gordhan for his second stint at the Treasury. Fuzile was testifying at the state capture inquiry on Wednesday about his time at National Treasury under different ministers. He left the Treasury in May 2017 after Gordhan was fired, and after serving 19 years in the department.
Fuzile told the commission that on the night Nene was axed, he received a call from the ANC's head of economic transformation subcommittee, Enoch Godongwana. During the conversation, Godongwan...
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