September 13, (THEWILL) – 
South African anti-apartheid activist and former minister, Pravin Jamnadas Gordhan, has died at the age of 75.
Gordhan died in the hospital in the early hours of Friday after battling cancer, his family said in an emailed statement.
“Mr. Gordhan passed away peacefully in hospital surrounded by his family, closest friends and his long-time comrades in the liberation struggle in the early hours of this morning,” his family said following his death after being hospitalised this week for cancer.
“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,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a statement.
Born on April 12, 1949, in the eastern port city of Durban, the son of traders who had immigrated to South Africa from India in the 1920s, Gordhan became immersed in the struggle against White-minority rule while studying pharmacy and was detained three times for his political activism, enduring torture at the hands of the police.
A veteran anti-apartheid activist from his teenage years, Gordhan’s political activism saw him into the African National Congress (ANC) underground structures in the 1980s.
He was one of the negotiators for the country’s peaceful transition to a constitutional democracy and became a member of parliament in 1994 after Nelson Mandela became the country’s first democratically elected president.
Gordhan retired from active politics after the May elections when the ANC lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since it came into power in 1994.
His last position in government was as the minister of public enterprises from 2018 to 2024 in charge of state-owned enterprises. He served two terms as finance minister from 2009 to 2014 and again from 2015 to 2017.
From 1999 to 2009, Gordhan was the head of the South African Revenue Services, which he was credited with transforming into a world-class tax and customs service.
Gordhan made a name for himself within the government by leading an overhaul of the national tax agency. Recruited to the post in 1999 by then-Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, Gordhan served as commissioner of the South African Revenue Service for a decade and transformed it into a world-class organisation, overhauling its systems and recruiting a new team of highly skilled personnel. Government revenue more than tripled during his tenure as an additional 1.5 million people were drawn into the tax net.
The activist and tax reformer was an outspoken critic of corruption in government and state-owned enterprises and was one of the ministers who criticized the leadership of former President Jacob Zuma while he was still serving in his Cabinet.
In 2016, prosecutors said Gordhan would face two fraud charges for illegally approving the early retirement of a subordinate, resulting in 1.1 million rand ($61,000) of wasteful expenditure. Civil rights groups, the heads of some of South Africa’s biggest companies and scores of ANC leaders rallied to Gordhan’s defence, and the case was dropped due to a lack of evidence.
Gordhan said he’d been the victim of “persecution and political mischief” driven by “rent-seekers” intent on accessing state coffers.
In March 2017, Gordhan flew to London to promote South Africa as an investment destination, and upon his arrival, he received a message from Zuma’s office instructing him to return home. He was fired shortly thereafter, part of a major cabinet reshuffle that saw Zuma appoint loyalists to key posts.
Cyril Ramaphosa, who succeeded Zuma, named Gordhan as his public enterprises minister and tasked him with turning around mismanaged, cash-strapped state companies.
