Gordhan tipped for dramatic return as head of SOEs

Former finance minister Pravin Gordhan has emerged as the frontrunner to take over the Department of Public Enterprises in an imminent cabinet reshuffle by President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Top ANC national executive committee members who are part of a team discussing changes to the cabinet with Ramaphosa say several ministers will get the chop in a bid to clean up the government's image and streamline the bloated cabinet.

The NEC members, who asked not to be named, said Gordhan was favoured to replace Lynne Brown at public enterprises to lead a clean-up of crucial state-owned entities like Eskom, Transnet, Denel and SAA.

Brown is expected to be among those fired when Ramaphosa makes changes to the cabinet he inherited from Jacob Zuma. The new president signalled his intention to trim government fat in the state of the nation address on Friday.

Insiders said the Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services would be merged with the Department of Communications, and the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries would be combined with the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform.

Ramaphosa also intends to have no more than one deputy minister in a portfolio; this would affect the departments of international relations and co-operation, defence and military veterans, justice and constitutional development, and co-operative governance and traditional affairs, all of which have two.

He is being lobbied to cut 10 of the current 35 portfolios. Zuma was criticised for the bloated size of his executive, in which 74 ministers and deputy ministers served.

Under former president Thabo Mbeki, the executive comprised 28 ministries.

If Gordhan does replace Brown, he is expected to lead the turnaround of state-owned enterprises, among other things shaking up their boards as outlined by Ramaphosa on Friday.

The parastatals have been plagued by corruption, mismanagement and maladministration and have lost billions of rands in revenue. Eskom and SAA are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.

The ANC insiders said Gordhan was preferred to lead the Department of Public Enterprises because of his reputation as a strong technocrat who led the turnaround of the South African Revenue Service when he served as its commissioner.

"If there's anyone who can clean up our state-owned enterprises it is Comrade Gordhan. He cleaned up SARS when he arrived in 1999 - he found a badly run revenue service ... and turned it into one of the most competent public entities in the 10 years he spent there," said one NEC member.

Gordhan's role in the parliamentary inquiry into state capture at Eskom had also burnished his CV, said another NEC member.

But the NEC members and government officials privy to the discussions said Ramaphosa, in the interests of fostering ANC unity, was unlikely to make wholesale changes before the elections next year.

Acting presidential spokesman Tyrone Seale said Ramaphosa would finalise the reconfiguration of the cabinet next month. "The details will be worked out ... to determine how best it can be run cost-effectively," he said.

Seale said he was not in a position to confirm or deny any specific cabinet changes.

Ramaphosa's supporters within the ANC, along with business leaders and labour unions, are urging him to fire several ministers who are seen as having brought the government into disrepute.

Among them is the minister of mineral resources, Mosebenzi Zwane, who has been embroiled in a spat with the mining industry over the new mining charter which has been criticised as detrimental to the sustainability of the sector.

Zwane is also implicated in allegations of fraud and corruption over the Estina dairy farm which is the subject of a investigation by the Hawks.

State Security Minister Bongani Bongo is also said to be on his way out. Zuma shocked the intelligence community in October when he appointed Bongo, who has since been accused of offering a bribe to the evidence leader of the parliamentary inquiry into Eskom.

"The Department of State Security is critical to the safety of nation and must be treated as such. We are going to need a much more mature person to lead it," said one of the people taking part in the reshuffle discussions.

Others said to face the axe include Faith Muthambi, minister of public service and administration, and Bathabile Dlamini, minister of social development.