PETER BRUCE: Let’s hope Gordhan stares the NPA down
The longer a charge of fraud hangs over the finance minister, the greater the chance that Zuma will use it to fire him
For most of the rest of the day, there’ll be an uneasy calm around the Gupta-Zuma-Gordhan scrap as we wait to see whether or not finance minister Pravin Gordhan accepts an invitation from Shaun Abrahams, the head of the National Prosecuting Authority, to personally ask him, Abrahams, to review his decision to charge Gordhan with fraud relating to an early pension payout to an official he worked with at Sars. My guess (and my hope) is that Gordhan will do nothing and will dare Abrahams to go ahead with the prosecution he sanctioned and, in his Gilbert and Sullivan-esque manner, boldly proclaimed just a week ago. In other words, Abrahams and whatever poor prosecutor he assigns to the case, are going to have to go to court and lose. Well, almost. It is possible that the NPA, having set the charge and secured the court date on November 2, will play for time and seek a delay, giving President Jacob Zuma more time to decide how to handle Gordhan now that the war between the two men is out...
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