Jabu Moleketi

Jabu Moleketi
Deputy Minister of Finance
In office
29 April 2004 – 23 September 2008
PresidentThabo Mbeki
MinisterTrevor Manuel
Preceded byMandisi Mpahlwa
Succeeded byNhlanhla Nene
Member of the Gauteng Executive Council for Finance and Economic Affairs
In office
May 1994 – April 2004
PremierTokyo Sexwale
Mathole Motshekga
Sam Shilowa
Preceded byOffice established
Succeeded byPaul Mashatile
Personal details
BornPhillip Jabulani Moleketi
(1957-06-15) 15 June 1957
Pimville, Soweto
Transvaal, South Africa
PartyAfrican National Congress
Other political
affiliations
South African Communist Party
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1983)​
Alma materUniversity of London

Phillip Jabulani Moleketi (born 15 June 1957) is a South African businessman and former politician. A member of the African National Congress (ANC), he was the Deputy Minister of Finance between April 2004 and September 2008. Before that, he was Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Finance and Economic Affairs in Gauteng Province from May 1994 to April 2004. He was a member of the ANC National Executive Committee between December 1997 and December 2007.

Born in Soweto, Moleketi was an underground operative for the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto weSizwe, during the anti-apartheid struggle. After the end of apartheid, he was appointed to the Gauteng Executive Council, where he headed the Gauteng Treasury under three consecutive premiers. Though a senior member of the South African Communist Party, Moleketi was reputed for his pro-market economic policies and was an outspoken opponent of so-called ultra-leftism in the party. President Thabo Mbeki promoted him to the National Treasury after the April 2004 general election, and he was viewed as a likely successor to Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel.

After Mbeki was unseated from his leadership positions, Moleketi lost his position in the ANC National Executive and resigned from government in September 2008. In later years he served as chairman of the Development Bank of Southern Africa and in various private-sector positions, including as chairman of Brait, Vodacom, and iOCO. He currently serves as the Chairman of PPC Limited.

Early life and education

Moleketi was born on 15 June 1957 in Pimville, a township in Soweto in present-day Gauteng Province.[1] His father had been a miner and his mother was a domestic worker; neither was literate or politically active, and they lived in a one-room house in Pimville where they raised Moleketi in the Catholic Church.[1] He also had two sisters, one a nurse and the other a social worker.[2] He attended Nchanga High School, a Catholic boarding school in the Valley of a Thousand Hills, but he was expelled in 1973 after he participated in a protest in solidarity with classmates who had themselves been expelled for bringing their girlfriends into the dormitories.[1] Though he had been training to become a priest, Moleketi became disillusioned with the Catholic Church after his expulsion and henceforth abandoned organised religion.[1]

After his expulsion, Moleketi attended Musi High School in Pimville.[3] There he became involved in Black Consciousness politics through the South African Students' Movement (SASM); other members of his SASM branch included Jackie Selebi—a history teacher at the school—and Murphy Morobe and Billy Masetlha.[1][3] He matriculated in 1975 and wanted to train as a medical doctor but could not attend university without a scholarship. Instead, unemployed, he spent 1976 participating in the Soweto uprising protests.[1][2][3]

After the end of apartheid, while serving in government, Moleketi studied financial economics at the University of London, completing a master's degree in 2002.[2]

Umkhonto weSizwe: 1976–1991

During the Soweto uprising, Moleketi was recruited into the underground African National Congress (ANC) by an activist named Roller Masinga, and in December 1976 he left the country to join the ANC in exile. He received training with the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto weSizwe (MK), in neighbouring Mozambique, and then returned to South Africa as part of an MK combat unit.[3][1] Between April 1977 and December 1980, he was an underground MK operative in South Africa, reporting to Siphiwe Nyanda's so-called Transvaal Urban machinery.[3][1] For cover, Moleketi worked in the Catholic Church as a youth organiser for the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference.[1][2] He lost his right eye in an explosion in an early sabotage operation in June 1977.[4]

After Moleketi's unit's cover was endangered in late 1980, he returned to exile with the ANC.[4] He received military training in Angola, officer training in the Soviet Union over a year in 1982 to 1983, and advanced military training in Cuba in 1989; he also spent time in the Lesotho, Mozambique, Zambia, and, for much of the latter half of the 1980s, Zimbabwe.[1][2][5] During this period he was recruited into the South African Communist Party (SACP), and Ivan Pillay recruited him into the ANC's top-secret Operation Vula mission in the final years of apartheid.[1] After the ANC and SACP were unbanned in 1990 during the negotiations to end apartheid, Moleketi returned to South Africa in 1991 as a full-time organiser for the SACP.[5][1]

Gauteng Treasury: 1994–2004

After the first post-apartheid elections in April 1994, Moleketi joined the Gauteng Provincial Legislature and Gauteng Executive Council, where he served for a decade as Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Finance and Economic Affairs.[5] Appointed to that office by the inaugural Premier of Gauteng, Tokyo Sexwale, he continued in the position through the tenure of Premier Mathole Motshekga and the first term of Premier Sam Shilowa.

He was widely respected for his work in the portfolio,[6][7] described by Africa Confidential as having "a reputation for probity and hard work".[8] The Mail & Guardian said in 1999 that he had built "the finest financial management team – and probably the most racially representative – of any province".[9] His pet initiative was the Blue IQ agency, which ring-fenced a substantial budget for investments in large development projects in Gauteng, including the Gautrain.[10]

Tripartite Alliance positions

For part of his time in the provincial government, Moleketi served as secretary-general of the SACP's Gauteng branch.[11] He was also repeatedly named as a potential candidate for the provincial leadership of the ANC and the premiership of Gauteng,[12][13][14] but the Mail & Guardian observed in 1997 that he lacked a strong constituency in the ANC's local branches.[15] Instead, Moleketi joined the ANC National Executive Committee in December 1997; he was elected to his first five-year term by the ANC's 50th National Conference, ranked as the 57th-most popular member of the 60-member committee by number of votes received.[16] He was re-elected in December 2002, ranked 47th.[17]

Political views

I do not go home and lock myself in a room and cry because I spoke to Harry Oppenheimer. He is a nice old man, and Anglo American is a key player. I leave the Utopian dreaming to the far left. I am a man of action, I believe that we should have a vision.

— Moleketi on his pragmatic politics in 1995[11]

Moleketi, along with his wife and various other perceived allies of President Thabo Mbeki, was viewed as a member of a contingent of senior "moderates" in the SACP and Tripartite Alliance.[18][19] A City Press profile described him as believing "that South Africa can only achieve socialism through a capitalist economy".[20]

In a controversial interview in 2001, he castigated the SACP for taking outdated and unsophisticated policy positions and for failing to develop its political role beyond acting as the mere "voice of Cosatu".[21][22] Moleketi also defended, against charges of neoliberalism, the ANC's prevailing macroeconomic economic policy under President Mbeki, a fiscally conservative and market-oriented programme called Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR); per Moleketi, the experience of the People's Republic of China showed that pro-capitalist policies like privatisation were not necessarily "anti-communist".[21]

In 2002, Moleketi and Josiah Jele co-authored a notorious 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 was mobilising international support against Mbeki's democratically elected government and its GEAR policy. The pamphlet echoed President Mbeki's denunciation of "ultra-left" opposition as counter-revolutionary, and it inaugurated a public row in the Tripartite Alliance.[23][24] Critics dismissed its rhetoric for leaning on "the politics of paranoia" and on "McCarthyism, liberal usage of red herrings, and what can only be described as a Qur’anic approach to Marxism–Leninism".[25][26][27]

Deputy Minister of Finance: 2004–2008

In the April 2004 general election, Moleketi left Gauteng to take up an ANC seat in the National Assembly, the lower house of the South African Parliament. Announcing his second-term cabinet on 28 April, President Mbeki named Moleketi as Deputy Minister of Finance.[28] He was expected to be groomed as prospective successor to the Minister of Finance, Trevor Manuel.[6][7] In his capacity as deputy minister, he served as chairperson of the newly restructured Public Investment Commission (PIC).[29] He also represented the government on the local organising committee that was preparing for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa;[5][30] he chaired the technical coordinating committee.[31][32]

At an early stage in his tenure, in 2005, Moleketi reportedly approached the ANC with a proposal for systematically relaxing South African labour laws in service of the development of a dual labour market. The policy proposal was strenuously opposed by trade unions.[33]

Moleketi served less than a full parliamentary term in national government. At the ANC's next national conference in Polokwane in December 2007, Moleketi was among the several members of Mbeki's government who failed to gain re-election to the ANC National Executive Committee.[34] On 23 September 2008, in response to the announcement that the new ANC leadership had forced Mbeki to resign from the national presidency, he and Manuel both joined the large group of ministers and deputy ministers who announced their own resignations from government.[35]

After Kgalema Motlanthe was announced as Mbeki's successor in the presidency, Manuel's spokesman said that both Manuel and Moleketi were willing to return to their former positions in Motlanthe's government.[36] However, while Manuel returned to the Treasury, Moleketi did not,[37] and he also resigned his seat in the National Assembly on 25 September.[38] Nhlanhla Nene replaced him as Deputy Minister of Finance,[39] and Sicelo Shiceka filled his seat in Parliament.[38] Moleketi was scathing about the Zuma-led ANC's treatment of Mbeki, saying that the party was entering "a man-made winter".[40] He was subsequently courted by the nascent Congress of the People, the group of Mbeki supporters that ultimately broke away from the ANC.[41][42]

Career in business

Soon after leaving the government, Moleketi launched his career in the private sector. In 2009, the Mail & Guardian reported that he was being considered to succeed Mark Moody-Stuart as chairman of Anglo American.[43] Later that year, he was appointed to the board of Remgro[44] and succeeded Mervyn King as non-executive chairman of the board of asset manager Brait SA.[45] He was appointed to the board of Vodacom in November 2009,[46] and he went on to succeed Peter Moyo as Vodacom's chairman between July 2017 and July 2020, when he ceded the role to Saki Macozoma.[47][48] In 2018 he was additionally appointed as the chairman of cement maker PPC Limited.[49] In 2020, he was appointed as chairman of the board of technology company iOCO.[50]

Moleketi has also served as chairman or director of three affiliated unlisted investment companies, Harith Fund Managers, Harith General Partners, and Lebashe Investment Group (iOCO's black economic empowerment partner). His interests in these companies became controversial in 2018 when opposition politician Bantu Holomisa wrote to President Cyril Ramaphosa demanding an inquiry into alleged corruption at the PIC, formerly chaired by Moleketi; among other things, Holomisa described Harith and Lebashe as a "cartel" that had improperly acquired PIC funds and profited from the putative conflict of interest that arose from Moleketi's former government offices.[51][52] Testifying at Lex Mpati's judicial commission of inquiry into the PIC in 2019, Moleketi strongly denied Holomisa's allegations.[52][53][54][55]

Moleketi also remained periodically involved in the governance of public entities. He was the chairman of the state-owned Development Bank of Southern Africa until December 2018.[56][57] In addition, in 2017, Gauteng Premier David Makhura appointed him as the chairperson of a newly established 14-member provincial economic advisory panel.[58][59] In May 2026, Carol Paton reported that the ANC had invited Moleketi to return to politics as the party's candidate for Mayor of Johannesburg in the November 2026 local elections; Moleketi declined.[60]

Personal life

Moleketi is married to former cabinet minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi. The couple met in exile at an MK camp in Angola and married in Lusaka, Zambia in 1983.[2] They have three children.[2] In 2013 he was robbed at his home in the Johannesburg suburb of Observatory.[61]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 "15 Mar 2002: Moleketi, Jabu". The O'Malley Archives. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "New deputy finance minister speaks out". The Mail & Guardian. 24 May 2004. Retrieved 4 August 2023.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Houston, Gregory; Magubane, Bernard (2004). "The ANC Political Underground in the 1970s" (PDF). In South African Democracy Education Trust (ed.). The Road to Democracy in South Africa. Vol. 2. Pretoria: University of South Africa Press. pp. 384–385. ISBN 9781868884063..
  4. 1 2 "1976-1983: Mass Democratic movements". South African History Online. 3 March 2016. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  5. 1 2 3 4 "Jabulani Moleketi, Mr". South African Government. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  6. 1 2 "Climbing to the top of the greasy pole". The Mail & Guardian. 20 December 2003. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  7. 1 2 "New faces for Cabinet?". The Mail & Guardian. 28 November 2003. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  8. ↑ "Gauteng for Mbeki". Africa Confidential. 28 May 1999. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  9. ↑ "Moleketi – fighting to the debt". The Mail & Guardian. 18 February 1999. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  10. ↑ "Gauteng goes for growth". The Mail & Guardian. 1 March 2002. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  11. 1 2 "The communist who became finance MEC". The Mail & Guardian. 28 July 1995. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  12. ↑ "Tokyo will quit next year". The Mail & Guardian. 26 June 1997. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  13. ↑ "Challengers for Shilowa". The Mail & Guardian. 26 October 2001. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  14. ↑ "A battle for power in the regions". The Mail & Guardian. 26 April 2001. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  15. ↑ "Premier stakes: What tipsters say". The Mail & Guardian. 4 July 1997. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  16. ↑ "50th National Conference: NEC Election Results". African National Congress. 10 November 2014. Archived from the original on 10 November 2014. Retrieved 10 December 2021.
  17. ↑ "Phosa, the comeback kid". News24. 20 December 2002. Retrieved 4 August 2023.
  18. ↑ "Moment of truth for SACP". The Mail & Guardian. 3 July 1998. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  19. ↑ "ANC 'dread' at reds under the bed". The Mail & Guardian. 20 March 1998. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  20. ↑ Mboyane, Sphiwe (15 June 2002). "Moleketi puts Gauteng miles ahead of the rest". News24. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  21. 1 2 "SACP 'stuck in a time warp'". The Mail & Guardian. 12 January 2001. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  22. ↑ Mantashe, Gwede (26 January 2001). "Moleketi's outburst undermines SACP". The Mail & Guardian. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  23. ↑ "ANC backed socialist order, says SACP". The Mail & Guardian. 21 November 2002. Retrieved 17 June 2023.
  24. ↑ "Document 'demonises' SACP". The Mail & Guardian. 31 October 2002. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  25. ↑ "The politics of paranoia". The Mail & Guardian. 31 October 2002. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  26. ↑ 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..
  27. ↑ 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..
  28. ↑ "NNP, Azapo leaders in new cabinet". The Mail & Guardian. 28 April 2004. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  29. ↑ "The treasury and the neoliberal agenda destroyed the state airline's capabilities". The Mail & Guardian. 17 June 2021. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  30. ↑ "Who is running the country?". The Mail & Guardian. 28 October 2008. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  31. ↑ "Government, FIFA and organising committee face Olympic media in Beijing". Government Communication and Information System (GCIS). 22 August 2008. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  32. ↑ "Pahad to stay on 2010 committee". IOL. 13 October 2008. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  33. ↑ "'Sweet talk — then right hook'". The Mail & Guardian. 2 December 2005. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  34. ↑ "Winnie tops ANC's NEC list". News24. 21 December 2007. Retrieved 4 August 2023.
  35. ↑ "SA rocked by resignation of ministers". The Mail & Guardian. 23 September 2008. Retrieved 5 August 2023.
  36. ↑ "Manuel's resignation sows chaos". The Mail & Guardian. 23 September 2008. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  37. ↑ "Manto axed from health portfolio". The Mail & Guardian. 26 September 2008. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  38. 1 2 "National Assembly Members". Parliamentary Monitoring Group. 15 January 2009. Archived from the original on 14 May 2009. Retrieved 8 April 2023.
  39. ↑ "Nene to be appointed finance deputy". IOL. 5 November 2008. Retrieved 4 July 2024.
  40. ↑ Southall, Roger (2009). "Understanding the 'Zuma Tsunami'" (PDF). Review of African Political Economy. 36 (121): 330–331. doi:10.1080/03056240903210739..
  41. ↑ "Mbeki supporters 'test waters' over new party". The Mail & Guardian. 3 October 2008. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  42. ↑ "Dialogue, not disruption, this weekend". The Mail & Guardian. 31 October 2008. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  43. ↑ "Anglo chairperson list includes Ramaphosa". The Mail & Guardian. 9 July 2009. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  44. ↑ "P.J. Moleketi". Remgro Limited. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  45. ↑ "Moleketi replaces King as Brait chair". IOL. 9 September 2009. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  46. ↑ "Moleketi appointed director of Vodacom". The Mail & Guardian. 27 October 2009. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  47. ↑ "Vodacom appoints Jabu Moleketi as its new chairman". Business Day. 15 June 2017. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  48. ↑ Cronje, Jan (27 March 2020). "Jabu Moleketi to step down as Vodacom chair in mid-July". News24. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  49. ↑ "Jabu Moleketi joins PPC as chairman". Business Day. 2 March 2018. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  50. ↑ "Our Leadership". IOCO. 1 October 2025. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  51. ↑ "UDM calls on Ramaphosa to tackle 'iceberg of corruption' at PIC". The Mail & Guardian. 28 June 2018. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  52. 1 2 Nicolson, Greg (24 April 2019). "Former deputy finance minister Jabu Moleketi rails against Bantu Holomisa allegations". Daily Maverick. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  53. ↑ Khumalo, Sibongile (23 April 2019). "Holomisa claims 'hurtful, damaging', ex-deputy finance minister Jabu Moleketi tells PIC inquiry". News24. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  54. ↑ "Moleketi firm hits back at Holomisa's PIC allegations". Business Day. 16 April 2019. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  55. ↑ "Moleketi refutes empire-building-with-state-pensions claims". Moneyweb. 24 April 2019. Archived from the original on 21 December 2019. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  56. ↑ "Can DBSA assist in SA's infrastructure-led recovery?". Moneyweb. 19 October 2020. Archived from the original on 22 August 2022. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  57. ↑ "DBSA moves centre stage". Africa Confidential. 10 October 2014. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  58. ↑ "Jabu Moleketi to lead premier's panel on economics". Business Day. 21 February 2017. Retrieved 27 May 2023.
  59. ↑ "Jabu Moleketi to lead premier's panel on economics". Business Day. 21 February 2017. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  60. ↑ Stark, Vicky (25 May 2026). "Reports suggest ANC battling to find Joburg mayoral candidate". EWN. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  61. ↑ "Airport gang robs former deputy minister". IOL. 21 July 2013. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
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