{"id":29925,"date":"2016-11-01T05:32:29","date_gmt":"2016-11-01T05:32:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/south-africa-drops-charges-against-finance\/"},"modified":"2016-11-01T05:32:26","modified_gmt":"2016-11-01T05:32:26","slug":"south-africa-drops-charges-against-finance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/south-africa-drops-charges-against-finance\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa drops charges against Finance Minister Gordhan"},"content":{"rendered":"

{South Africa’s chief prosecutor has dropped fraud charges against Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.}<\/p>\n

Mr Gordhan had described the allegations as without merit and politically motivated.
\nNews of the charges earlier this month rattled the financial markets and the South African rand fell more than 3%.<\/p>\n

The finance minister has been seen as standing up to President Jacob Zuma in cabinet and has warned against corruption becoming rampant.<\/p>\n

He was appointed for a second stint in the job late last year after the president’s preferred candidate lasted just a few days.<\/p>\n

The fraud charges related to alleged severance payments made to a senior executive at the South African Revenue Service (Sars), when it was under Mr Gordhan’s leadership 10 years ago.<\/p>\n

After reviewing the charges, the head of South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), Shaun Abrahams, said there had been no criminal intent.<\/p>\n

This is the latest in a series of blunders relating to the finance ministry that have cost South Africa’s economy millions of dollars.<\/p>\n

Many had alleged that the fraud case against Mr Gordhan was politically motivated and the NPA’s U-turn plays into those claims.<\/p>\n

It seems to have buckled under pressure following the public outcry against the decision to charge Mr Gordhan.<\/p>\n

Dozens of high-profile South Africans, including 100 stalwarts of the governing African National Congress had rallied behind the minister, seeing the charges as a political ploy aimed at ousting him from office so that the treasury could be looted by corrupt people.<\/p>\n

The debacle has raised questions about the independence of the NPA and whether it has been reduced to a political tool.<\/p>\n

At a news conference on Monday, Mr Abrahams rejected criticism that the original charges had been politically motivated.<\/p>\n

He said that everyone was treated equally before the law, and that laying charges and reviewing them was normal practice, IOL news website quotes him as saying.<\/p>\n

He added that he did not owe anyone an apology and dismissed calls for him to resign.<\/p>\n

The financial markets reacted positively to the news and there was a spike in the value of the currency when it broke.<\/p>\n

When President Zuma sacked Nhlanhla Nene as finance minister last December, replacing him with David van Rooyen, the widely-criticised move sent the rand to record lows and caused the stock market to tumble.<\/p>\n

Within a few days Mr Gordhan was appointed in Mr Van Rooyen’s place – a move designed to quell market discontent and restore some confidence.<\/p>\n

Many analysts believe that President Zuma would like to replace Mr Gordhan, who had previously served as South Africa’s finance minister from 2009 until 2014.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{South Africa’s chief prosecutor has dropped fraud charges against Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.} Mr Gordhan had described the allegations as without merit and politically motivated. News of the charges earlier this month rattled the financial markets and the South African rand fell more than 3%. The finance minister has been seen as standing up to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-29925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-justice","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29925\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29925"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=29925"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=29925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}