There was a moment in 2008, when Trevor Manuel’s resignation letter as finance minister was leaked to the media, that he came to realise SA’s hard-won democracy was in danger.
In an address to a leadership development event on Tuesday, Manuel recalled when Thabo Mbeki was ousted as president in September 2008. The event was organised by Unleashing Leadership Potential (ULP) in Midrand, Johannesburg.
He said it took only five hours for him to resign after the ANC removed Mbeki as president.
“Thabo [Mbeki] resigned at 2am on that fateful night. At 7am that morning I handed Mkhuluwa [Kgalema Motlanthe] and Mqwathi [Gwede Mantashe] my resignation letter. I wanted whoever was going to take over to make his or her own decision as to who will be finance minister.”
Mantashe and Motlanthe had tried to dissuade him from resigning, but his principles would not allow him to stay.
“They refused to take my resignation. Worse, I had to travel to New York for an IMF engagement. Whilst in New York I discovered that my resignation letter had leaked to the media. It was then I knew that our democracy was in trouble,” Manuel said.
“I said to Mkhuluwa [Motlanthe], if you ask me to serve in your cabinet I will gladly oblige as I was there to serve and only serve on the behest of the president.”
He told the packed ULP House auditorium that the 20 years he spent as a minister was to serve the people of SA, and to not disappoint his mother and his community in Cape Town. But he said he would not have been able to achieve much without the teams he served with in Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki’s cabinets.
He revealed that in 2009, when he refused to sign his nomination application to parliament, Motlanthe and the “Man from Nkandla” called him and asked him to reconsider. Throughout his talk on Tuesday night, Manuel never mentioned Jacob Zuma by name, referring to him only as the “Man from Nkandla”.
“I only signed that nomination after Mkhuluwa assured me that the party will not deploy me as finance minister again, but that I will be minister responsible for the NDP [National Development Plan],” he explained.
He also took a swipe at the country’s education and health systems.
“Our education is so bad to the extent that our Grade 1s to Grade 5s can’t read. Those who can ... can’t read for meaning, which then goes all the way up to matric and our universities. This is because our foundation phases are not properly looked after. The same goes to our health care. Our health system has collapsed completely,” Manuel said.
In 2016, Manuel was one of a few ANC senior members who broke ranks with the ruling party and called on Zuma to step down.
Last week, he successfully sued the EFF, its leader Julius Malema and its spokesperson, Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, for R500,000 for general damages after the opposition party issued a statement on March accusing the Old Mutual chairperson of nepotism and corruption.
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