Kimberley - As the ANC celebrates its 108th birthday in Kimberley in the Northern Cape, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan has found himself under fire from one of the part's alliance partners. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has joined the chorus calling for Gordhan to be axed.
The developments follow Deputy President David Mabuza's comments that Gordhan and the Eskom board had misled president Cyril Ramaphosa about Eskom's load shedding debacle. Cosatu joins the ANC youth league in the Free State which on Thursday called for Gordhan to be fired.
Legal think tank Insika Economic Movement and political formation BLF have also called for Gordhan's head.
Cosatu has called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to take urgent and decisive action against Gordhan for what it terms 'failure to address problems at Eskom'.
Cosatu spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said Gordhan was failing to implement Eskom’s turnaround strategy.
“The results show that Minister Pravin Gordhan has not delivered on what we expected him to, in terms of fixing the SOE’s. The AG (Auditor General Kimi Makwetu) still paints a gloomy of the SOE’s. Many of them are still failing; I mean Prasa is still failing millions of South Africans.
"Also if you look at Eskom, the economy is still struggling because of load shedding. Even if you look at the airline, it has deteriorated to a point where it is handed to business rescue. This is a worst case scenario where we allow all these SOE’s to implode. If we are to avert it, we need to act and act now,” Pamla said.
Gordhan has not yet responded to Mabuza's comments.