‘Tension’ with Gordhan sees DG suspended

● Tensions between public enterprises director-general Kgathatso Tlhakudi and his boss, minister Pravin Gordhan, have culminated in this week’s announcement that Tlhakudi has been suspended, pending a disciplinary hearing.

The Sunday Times understands that tension between the two leaders of the department that oversees critical state-owned enterprises such as Eskom and Transnet has been simmering for more than a year, and recently boiled over when Gordhan instructed Tlhakudi to take special sick leave at the start of May. The leave was to allow the department to conduct investigations into a whistleblower report by a public enterprises department staffer to the Public Service Commission (PSC) about Tlhakudi’s conduct during the department’s process to appoint a security manager.

The complaint, the Sunday Times understands, was that Tlhakudi overruled panel recommendations. He has declined to comment, while the department has referred all queries to justice & correctional services minister Ronald Lamola, who has been delegated by President Cyril Ramaphosa to handle the matter.

The suspension brought to an end a seven-week-long standoff between Gordhan and Tlhakudi that saw the latter forcibly return to the department after he had been banished.

On his return to the office last Monday, Tlhakudi called a meeting with senior officials to speak about what was happening. Later that day, he was called to a meeting with the director-general in the presidency, Phindile Baleni, said a government source with intimate knowledge of the rift.

The source said there had been new tension brewing between the DG and Gordhan

with Tlhakudi apparently frustrated at being shut out of key departmental actions and processes.