Jabu Moleketi

Phillip Jabulani "Jabu" Moleketi (born 15 June 1957 in Pimville, Gauteng) ^[1] is a South African politician. He was Deputy Minister of Finance in the Cabinet of South Africa of President Thabo Mbeki, from 2004 to 2008.

Biography

Moleketi initially attended a boarding school in Inchanga, KwaZulu-Natal. He completed his Form 4 and 5 at the Musi High School in Pimville (a Soweto suburb), where he joined the local branch of anti-apartheid South African Students' Movement (SASM) in which Billy Masetlha and Murphy Morobe were also active. He was influenced by the Black Consciousness Movement at the time. ^[2]

He matriculated at a university in 1975 and participated in the Soweto uprising in June 1976. He was recruited by Roller Masinga to attend a crash course in guerrilla tactics, underground work, firearms and explosives in Mozambique, travelling in December 1976 through Swaziland. On his return in April 1977, he became a member of the Transvaal Urban Machinery of uMkhonto weSizwe commanded by Siphiwe Nyanda. ^[2]

Moleketi was member of the Executive Council of Gauteng (MEC) for finance and economic affairs between 1994 and 1996, with Andrew Feinstein as his economic advisor.

In 2002, with a fellow member of the African National Congress's National Executive Committee Josiah Jele, he co-authored a pamphlet entitled "Two Strategies of the National Liberation Movement in the Struggle for the Victory of the National Democratic Revolution", in which they alleged that an "ultra-left plot" inside the Tripartite Alliance (with the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions) was mobilising international support against the ruling ANC's Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) fiscally conservative and market-oriented macroeconomic programme. The pamphlet echoed President Mbeki's denunciation of "ultra-left" opposition as counter-revolutionary, and was criticised for its alleged "McCarthyism, liberal usage of red herrings, and what can only be described as a Qur’anic approach to Marxism–Leninism". ^{[3] [4]}

Following the resignation of President Mbeki at the request of the ANC's National Executive Committee, Moleketi was among those members of the cabinet who submitted their resignations on 23 September 2008, although it was subsequently announced that, like Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel, he might be willing to remain in his post. ^[5] In November 2008 President Kgalema Motlanthe appointed Nhlanhla Nene in his position. Moleketi also resigned his seat in the parliament, denounced the new phase in ANC history as "a man-made winter" alleging its corruption by self-interest, and refused to campaign for the party, but did not immediately leave the ANC for the Congress of the People like some opponents of Mbeki's removal. ^[6]

He is married to Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, the former minister of public service and administration who was replaced by Richard Baloyi on 25 September 2008.

References

1. "Jabu Moleketi | Who's Who SA". whoswho.co.za. Archived from the original on 15 August 2012.
2. Houston, Gregory; Magubane, Bernard (2004), "The ANC Political Underground in the 1970s" (PDF), The Road to Democracy in South Africa, by South African Democracy Education Trust, vol. 2, Pretoria: University of South Africa Press, pp. 384–385, ISBN   9781868884063 .
3. Cherry, Janet; Southall, Roger (2006), "Union Democracy, Parliamentary Democracy and the 2004 Elections", in Buhlungu, Sakhela (ed.), Trade Unions and Democracy: Cosatu Workers' Political Attitudes in South Africa, Cape Town: Human Sciences Research Council Press, p. 76, ISBN   0-7969-2127-X .
4. Johnson, Krista (2003), "Liberal or Liberation Framework? The Contradictions of ANC Rule in South Africa", in Melber, Henning (ed.), Limits to Liberation in South Africa: The Unfinished Business of Democratic Consolidation (PDF), Cape Town: Human Sciences Research Council Press, pp. 215–216, ISBN   0-7969-2025-7 .
5. "Confusion rattles markets", Sapa (IOL), 23 September 2008.
6. Southall, Roger (2009), "Understanding the 'Zuma Tsunami'" (PDF), Review of African Political Economy , 36 (121): 330–331, doi:10.1080/03056240903210739 .