Anti-apartheid veteran and corruption fighter Gordhan dies

SOUTH AFRICA: South Africa’s former finance minister, Pravin Gordhan, has died at the age of 75, his family said.

The anti-apartheid struggle veteran played a key role in South Africa’s transition to democracy and helped negotiate the end of white-minority rule.

As well as finance minister, he occupied other top government and administrative roles since the 1990s until he announced his retirement from politics in May.

The veteran cabinet minister died in hospital early on Friday after “a short, courageous battle with cancer”, his family said in a statement.

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It added that he was “surrounded by his family, closest friends and his lifelong comrades in the liberation struggle when he passed away in the early hours this morning”.

He is credited with turning around the national tax agency – the South African Revenue Service – and making it a credible and effective institution between 1999 to 2009.

Gordhan was then finance minister until 2014 and was seen as a competent safe pair of hands, who encouraged stability and discipline at the treasury.