Pravin Gordhan, a key player in post-apartheid South Africa who won praise for overhauling the tax system and fighting graft, died on Friday aged 75, his family announced.
Gordhan, whose career in politics and public service spanned five decades, retired as cabinet minister a few months before the general elections in May this year to focus on his health and family.
He had been suffering from cancer, his family said in a statement. Before his death, he said: “I have no regrets, no regrets… We have made our contribution,” it said.
Gordhan was a pillar in successive governments after the first all-race elections of 1994 that ended apartheid rule.
“We have lost an outstanding leader whose unassuming persona belied the depth of intellect, integrity and energy with which he undertook his activism, his duty as a parliamentarian and his roles as a member of cabinet,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said.
Softly spoken and measured in public but tough behind the scenes, Gordhan earned a global reputation for fiscal prudence and for fighting corruption.
His last cabinet portfolio saw him in charge of public enterprises. He was appointed by Ramaphosa to root out graft and waste at state-owned businesses like troubled electricity monopoly Eskom and embattled South African Airways.
To many, he failed to do so, leaving at his retirement several debt-ridden state-owned enterprises in a calamitous state.
Between 2009 and 2017, Gordhan served two terms as finance minister, before being fired by corruption-tainted former president Jacob Zuma in a purge of rivals and critics.
Gordhan is hailed for turning the South African Revenue Service (SARS) into an independent and credible body when he headed it from 1999 to 2009.
The service paid tribute to Gordhan after learning of his death, describing him as a “fearless ambassador for public service”.
He “championed policies and reforms that strengthened the institution, transforming it into a globally respected revenue service,” it said.
Born in the eastern port city of Durban in 1949, Gordhan’s political life began as a pharmacy student at the University of Durban-Westville, then an Indians-only institution.
There he joined the anti-apartheid Natal Indian Congress and became involved with the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party.
Throughout the 1980s, Gordhan was repeatedly arrested for his political activities that challenged white-minority rule.
He played a pivotal role in talks that steered South Africa to its first democratic elections in 1994, before becoming an ANC member of parliament.
