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Bye Bye Tito, Hello Enoch

President Ramaphosa has made some significant changes to his Cabinet. In the midst of the changes, former Finance Minister Tito Mboweni handed in his resignation.

Tito has been under a lot of pressure from many sides and has had a good innings during a very tough time since 2018. He has faced pressures from without and within.

‘former Finance Minister Tito Mboweni handed in his resignation’

In particular, he often found himself at odds with those who wanted to throw good money after bad in trying to bail out redundant failing state-owned enterprises. SAA became one of his biggest battlegrounds. Recently, Cosatu and the SACP have been pressuring for his removal during negotiations over civil servant salary increases.

Tito has tried to resign in the past but the President convinced him to carry on. It now seems the time has come for the former Finance Minister to find other opportunities.

The President then invited the current head of the ANC’s NEC economic transformation sub-committee, Mr Enoch Godongwana to take on the role as Finance Minister.

‘The President invited … Mr Enoch Godongwana to take on the role as Finance Minister’

Enoch is also a director at Mondi, and Platinum Group Metals and serves as chairperson of the Development Bank of Southern Africa. He comes from a trade union background and served as the general secretary of Numsa.

He spent time as provincial minister of finance in the Eastern Cape before becoming the Deputy Minister of Economic Development (till 2012).

In the past, he has been a loud voice against overspending by Government and made statements about the need for SA to have better social infrastructure to meet people’s basic needs. He has also pointed to the need to expand economic infrastructure and energy security.

So, Mr Godongwana has extensive experience and is seen as well suited to the challenging task of serving as Finance Minister.