Treasury director-general Dondo Mogajane is leaving the National Treasury Department after 23 years. Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana made the announcement on Thursday. Mogajane spoke with eNCA. Courtesy of #DStv403
So big news today treasury director general donde mohojani is leaving finance minister enoch gorongwana made the announcement earlier today saying mohojani has decided not to extend his contract after 23 years at treasury the last five of course as dg and he joins us now thank you so much for joining us this evening so you’re what 53 23 years at treasury why leave
Now when our economy needs highly skilled people such as yourself to steer it through such a very difficult time look thank you very much and good evening uh look you know yes you can ask and say why am i living now i think for me this is the time i’ve said i think you know some people with fresh minds fresh legs they must carry on with this bait and they must
Just come and run and then i think we are almost there there are green shoots by the way and i’m happy and moody’s has just came to us last week and moved us to to stable um you know and you know the reform program is is up and running um at least there are big three big things in the in the last while that have been happening you know tax revenues are coming
Through even though the commodity cycle is temporary but we think we’ve got good things happening for us so i think this is the right time someone with new energies must come in and run and and that’s why i didn’t want to create more uncertainties around whether i’m going to stay or you know it was clear they’ve tried the solitude to really try and convince
Me minister guru maharaj from the first day last year because i indicated to him then even before he started the treasury that i’m living and and he he’s been trying the last time on saturday afternoon i’m just i’m just wondering how you knew that was my that was my next question sorry sorry i interrupted you yeah yes yeah you know they all tried i mean and i
Respect and i really appreciate the fact that they they they gave me the opportunity to to to ask me to stay on and and i humbly requested that i be allowed to leave because i have served i think and i’m proud of the achievements i’m proud of my own personal development in the 23 years i’ve been around i’ve developed as a human being i’ve developed as a leader
And i think maybe it’s high time that i must move on and do two other things i’m getting a sense what you’re saying is that you you’ve done your your country duty i’ve just got to ask you a question about concerns that treasury is losing skills because you’re leaving uh in the beginning of june but also fusilli lungies has gone michael sacks has gone is treasury
Getting weaker it’s always been known as such a strong institution see when when people when doing giza left in fact when lisa left uh when maria left people said that oh what’s going to happen and same with the left and then we came on and we you know i raised my hand and and i guess there are many other people in the treasury very good people that are there
Uh you can regard them as junior yes it’s okay but these people are the same people that have been behind closed doors behind the scenes running the shows i’m talking about dr peterson a phd harvard graduate i’m talking about dr medicine phd economics i’m talking about edgar i’m talking about you know makoshi by the way there’s somebody whom we forgot when you
Talk about capacity mahoji pedalik is he has been there from the situation there is a ddg currently she’s at the african development bank she’s finishing at them she’s coming back and she can also raise her hand very in fact more experience than me if you think about my whole show she was i heard about dead management that sounds like i can’t say that does that
Does sound reassuring that you can give me a list of names of people who are still within treasury um i have to ask did you get any pressure or any pushback after your comments last month that south africa’s showing signs of being a failed state or did you have more freedom to make a comment like that knowing that you were leaving i did not get any pressure
From anybody you know whether from the minister from the president nobody all the minister said to me was that jokingly he said to me you know you know some of these things we have to ensure that we do something about it because that’s what we talk about all the time the nice thing about working for treasure is that we are not reckless in our statements we are
Not because we know what it means to be reckless and the impact that that will cause but we know when to say certain things to shake the systems to shake colleagues that i work with and and we’ve been doing that we’ve been doing that and we continue doing that so there’s only one or two people who wanted to confirm senior is that is it true what i’ve written in
Newspapers i said no the headlines in the sunday times are wrong i didn’t say south africa as a failed state i was talking about showing signs of a failing state so right i think look we we are we are we are respected we we they knew that whoever knew that i would not make such reckless statements it was within a certain context but it’s good for instance that we
Remind ourselves that if we are disconnected from the poor if we’re disconnected we we we you know and this may be detrimental to our course in this democratic project that we have you’re right we have to stay alive to that you joined treasury 23 years ago so what about 1999 so i’ve counted a lot of finance ministers trevor manuel pravin gordon titon boweny of
Course inaudible von royen who was your favorite yes sir emmanuel pravin gordon and of course um the idea of emanuel i was still junior at the time i was just admiring the fact that i’m in the room i’m learning from him i’m i i see what he does and and i was happy i was happy that he was there that i learned from him and even even my own career for reasons
I remember when i wanted to leave to join houston treasurer in 2005 i think as chief director in the budget of vision health team he called me i remember he was in washington says you’re not gonna go anyway i’m coming to see you you must come and see on monday morning so i you know for him to insist not to me for me to leave i think he knew what he was doing and
Then the rest is history praveen gordon i worked with him as his chief of staff on my you know coming back from the world bank after saving a while there from 2010 to 40 2014 i was his chief of staff i was his i was in his office i was heading his office i was running jointly they used to call me dm diary mentality just call me daddy meza because i used to mess
Everyone’s dad in the treasury because i i the the space he gave me to flourish the space he gave me to to be what i wanted to be and really give me the opportunity so you know he was he was there had his own characteristics calm quite decisive you’re not giving me a favor are you you’re just going to basically say that many i’ve got many look at this one ryan i
Don’t know i didn’t work with him he’s you he can never be my favorite well that was what four days i worked with him was it was that the toughest time sorry to interject we’re under a bit of time pressure because of what’s going on in dip slurp but was that the toughest time that that week in december when there were three different finance ministers appointed
That was the toughest time uh sally it was the toughest time my career was when praveen gordon laughed i mean and then and then manuscript came and i i had to i took advantage of my lucy knowing him from university days i said to my lucy you know this place can make you what you want to be let’s do it right please and and and we we kind of worked together well so
And by the time he left i think maluci knew what needs to be done but obviously the anc politics prevailed prevailed on him but but we we we by the time tito come he came in after my lucy we we had been through it hell quality for now it was difficult i remember the narrative that we had to push out there when we do that round trip around the world in november of
2017 it was not the easiest to explain to explain the state capture project to defend some of the things to rebut some of the things it was not easy but we stayed the course and and we explained south africa’s challenge and we committed to really changing things around and we continued to do that so those were the toughest years i can imagine in in from the 2017
Uh was just one of the toughest year ever especially the morale in the treasury was low people thought the state capture project is is a real project i mean the treasure was going to be captured so there was you know we didn’t trust each other it was just a tough environment but we managed we managed to i sailed through as as gg in 2018 2017 being appointed it
Was very difficult with a young team of actors uh you know ian stewart 18 budget management he said all of these were young people less than 30 i mean average age of 35. we had to do it we made it and and i’m proud to have to have led a team like that duncan was also at that time but now it’s a different environment of course we are rebuilding and enoch needs to
Be supported in rebuilding the treasure well i can say well done you have served this country with honor in the 23 years at treasury when you leave to go into the private sector i understand in june you can pat yourself on the back and we wish you well and thank you very much for chatting to us this evening thank you very much
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National Treasury | Mogajane to leave Treasury in June By eNCA
