THE RECLAMATION OF SOE's: THE OUTSTANDING INSTALMENT TO PAY FOR SOUTH AFRICA's POLITICAL SETTLEMENT. writes Phapano Phasha

In an interview on ENCA, the last whites only elected President of South Africa, Mr FW De Klerk had the following to say about the possible election of Cyril Ramaphosa as the 5th Black President of South Africa, "everything is not dark in South Africa, there is light at the end of the tunnel, and if the ANC wins and President Ramaphosa keeps to his promises, things will get better". This was one of his rare, if any before this one, endorsement of a ANC Presidency of the country. 

Today FW De Klerk can die in peace and here is why. It has taken De Klerk, the members of the Broederbond who are still alive and English capital twenty eight years to reclaim all assets that were created through the State from 1949 and this all started in 1993 as Whites were preparing to hand over power to a Black government.

In this article, I will be unpacking the critical role of Pravin Gordhan in restoring not only the legacy of Hendrik Verwoerd and the Broederbond, but making it a legacy to be intertwined with a 'New Dawn' whose beneficiaries are increasingly not those that gave the mandate to govern.

Through Pravin Gordhan, all the State Owned Entities that were created by Hendrick Verwoerd are back in the hands of Whites and this didn't happen overnight it took the White brotherhood twenty eight years of Planning and coopting black leaders.

Whilst Whites had preempted that the ANC would eventually loose power they were very impatient that State owned entities which they had created and lost to the ANC were enabling black people to generate wealth and a voice and thus a process to create an impression of instability and ineffectiveness of the State in black hands started, using the White owned media, White civil society movements, White created churches and White made black elites and White made black journalists.

Whites had managed to retain Economic and Structural power through the dubious IMF loan but they had lost State Assets to Black people. But they didn't simply mourn.

To recap; 

1. In 1993, FW De Klerk and his cabinet enacted a statutory body called the Transitional Executive Council(TEC) of South Africa which was Chaired by Pravin Gordhan and gave him Executive Powers equal to that of FW De Klerk. 

The apartheid goverment refused to hand over power until the ANC had agreed to sign declaratory concessions with the IMF.

2. In his capacity as the Chairperson/President of South Africa in 1993, Gordhan signed off a $63 Million debt owed by the apartheid government with the IMF;a loan which was payed off over 8 years by ordinary South Africans including the African majority who were victims of apartheid.

3. When Nelson Mandela became the "first" democratically elected President of South Africa in 1994 he said the following about the IMF loan:

“We are limited in South Africa because our democratic Government inherited a debt which at the time we were servicing at the rate of 30 billion rand a year...

That is thirty billion we did not have to build houses, to make sure our children go to the best schools, and to ensure that everybody has the dignity of having a job and a decent income.” (ACTSA 2002).

4. Not only was the loan signed by Gordhan an impediment to economic development it also came wth conditions which where affirmed through a letter of intent assuring the IMF that when ANC got elected into power in 1994 it would implement sound fiscal&economic reforms which included; 

4.1 The Independence of The Reserve Bank and the Public Investment Corporation

4.2 Appointment of apartheid watchdogs to the Ministry of Finance and Reserve Bank

 4.2 Protection of Intellectual and Property Rights

 4.3 Privatisation of State Owned entities

4.4 Lowering corporate Taxes

4.5 Relaxing exchange controls

4.5 Deregulation of food prices et cetera. Sources(Naomi Klein, Open Society Movement)

Because of strong civil society and the left, Pravin Gordhan could not unileterally sell State Assets but many concessions were made post 1994 when Mandela took over and Thabo Mbeki who went on a frenzy to impliment the IMF reforms by agreeing to Unbundle and privatise South African companies such as Iscor, De Beers and Anglo American. 

When Mbeki lost power, Pravin came back as Minister of Finance during the Zuma era from his deployment as SARs Commissioner, unfortunately Pravin could not continue with his 1993 agenda and it took him nine years to remove Zuma in order to impliment apartheid concessions which was to sell back all the State Assets to the Boers and English capital.

So De Klerk and Pravin can all die peacefully they have fulfilled their generational mission of the Broederbond and Natal Indian Congress which has always been to turn a black man into a subservient slave.

Ends.