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Enoch Godongwana (born 9 June 1957) is a South African politician and former trade unionist who is currently serving as the Minister of Finance since August 2021. He is a member of the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress (ANC).
Born in the Eastern Cape, Godongwana rose to political prominence as the general secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers between 1993 and 1997. After that, from 1997 to 2004, he served in the Executive Council of the Eastern Cape as Member of the Executive Council for Finance. He was first elected to the ANC National Executive Committee in December 1997, and he was the Deputy Provincial Chairperson of the ANC's Eastern Cape branch from 2003 to 2006 under Chairperson Makhenkesi Stofile. Premier Nosimo Balindlela sacked him from the Executive Council under controversial circumstances in September 2004.
Between May 2009 and January 2012, Godongwana was a deputy minister under the first cabinet of President Jacob Zuma. He was Deputy Minister of Public Enterprises from 2009 to 2010 and Deputy Minister of Economic Development from 2010 to 2012. He resigned from the latter position in January 2012 after a scandal involving one of his business interests, an investment company called Canyon Springs. However, he remained a prominent figure as long-serving chairperson of the ANC National Executive Committee's subcommittee on economic transformation, and he was chairperson of the Development Bank of Southern Africa from 2019 to 2021. He was appointed to the cabinet of President Cyril Ramaphosa on 5 August 2021.
At the same time, he was a member of the executive committee of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) from 1992 to 1997, as well as the chairperson of Cosatu's economic development task force. He was also a founding member of the National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC) and represented labour during the drafting of post-apartheid labour legislation, including the Labour Relations Act. The Financial Mail credited Godongwana for bringing Numsa, a notoriously militant and Workerism union, "into the Cosatu fold", as well as for setting it up for the major expansion in membership that it subsequently underwent.
Between 1998 and 2002, Godongwana instituted a "single government chequebook" in the provincial government, reducing the ability of other departments to pursue discretionary spending. The measure led to improved audit outcomes and facilitated spending cutbacks.
On 26 April 2003, he was elected to succeed Stone Sizani as Deputy Provincial Chairperson of the Eastern Cape ANC, deputising Premier Stofile. Godongwana won in a crowded field of candidates, receiving 177 votes against the 125 to Phumulo Masualle, 98 to Mandisi Mpahlwa, and 83 to Thobile Mhlahlo. The vote followed an earlier iteration of the election β with the same outcome β which had been held in 2002 but annulled and rerun at the request of the NEC. He held the Deputy Provincial Chairperson position for a single term, stepping down in December 2006 to be succeeded by Mbulelo Sogoni.
The reasons for Godongwana's dismissal remained unclear, and his departure created tensions in the provincial Tripartite Alliance. In 2008, media published a leaked copy of the report of the three-person Pillay Commission, chaired by Judge Ronnie Pillay, which had investigated financial irregularities in the administration of former Premier Stofile. Pillay's report implicated Godongwana, Stofile, and Stone Sizani in maladministration and corruption in their respective departments. However, the trio rejected Pillay's findings and mounted a court challenge, which succeeded in May 2005 when the Grahamstown High Court discarded the report on review.
After the 52nd Conference, the NEC appointed Godongwana to succeed Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi as the chairperson of the NEC's subcommittee on labour. However, during the five-year term of the 52nd NEC, that subcommittee was disbanded, and Godongwana took up a highly influential role as chairperson for policy in the subcommittee on economic transformation, the overall chair of which was Max Sisulu.
On 31 October 2010, Zuma announced his first cabinet reshuffle, in which Godongwana was moved to succeed Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde as Deputy Minister of Economic Development. The Department of Economic Development had been newly created after the 2009 election and was led by Minister Ebrahim Patel, also a former trade unionist.
Richard Kawie and Sam Buthelezi, other co-owners of Canyons Springs Investment 12, had fraud cases opened against them for not repaying the union's loan.
Godongwana denied that his resignation was related to the Canyon Springs controversy, saying that he had realised he would be busy with "party work" in 2012. The Canyon Springs liquidation inquiry continued until August 2012. According to Sactwu, the matter was concluded in January 2017 when Godongwana reached a settlement with the union, in terms of which he repaid Sactwu with interest.
The following year, when new Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan was facing fraud charges, Godongwana was among the politicians who defended Gordhan and implied that the charges had political motives. He told eNCA that, "I share that view that in fact these charges are being concocted in order to cover all of those things misconduct, to find a minister which sic is pliant, which is going to accept all those things". He also said that he would join public demonstrations in support of Gordhan, because "We can not be silent as South Africans when people who are running good governance are being undermined." In 2017, he questioned the decision of Gordhan's successor, Malusi Gigaba, to appoint Chris Malikane, a controversial figure reportedly linked to the Gupta family, as his economic adviser.
These people who are making radical changes... what are those radical changes? People must be tested whether they are proposing practical things. They're talking abstract. Can you ask them to say 'These are the practical things to be done?'Godongwana personally argued against amending the Constitution to allow for land expropriation without compensation, saying that land reform had been obstructed by a lack of political will rather than by the constitutional framework. He later elaborated that previous governments had made "a lot of mistakes" in pursuing land reform, including blindly accepting the principle that expropriated land should be compensated at market value. However, at the ANC's 54th National Conference in December 2017, Godongwana was involved in drafting a policy resolution that endorsed the plan to amend the Constitution to allow for land expropriation without compensation, provided that doing so was sustainable and did not harm other economic sectors. His involvement in devising this compromise led some to credit him with "saving" the conference, which was almost derailed by fierce debate about the land issue. The Financial Mail said that Godongwana had mastered "the art of producing vague, watered-down compromises in the guise of economic policy" as a means to constraining the "worst excesses" of the ANC's left.
At the same conference, Godongwana supported Cyril Ramaphosa's successful bid to succeed Zuma as ANC president, and he was himself re-elected to the NEC, ranked 31st of 80 members. In the aftermath of the conference, he was reappointed chairperson of the economic subcommittee.
DBSA denied Holomisa's allegations and said that Godongwana's political exposure did not make him ineligible for the job. Finance Minister Tito Mboweni appeared before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts in June 2021 and said that the allegations were unfounded and emanated from a "bitter" former board member.
He was sworn into president Ramaphosa's third cabinet on 3 July 2024.
We must be prepared to consolidate some of our state-owned entities and let go of those that are no longer considered strategically relevant. As far as SOEs are concerned, I think what I want to do is practice tough love.In future years, he gained a reputation as a staunch champion of fiscal consolidation and as "the finance minister with one of the tightest grips on the country's purse strings". When asked about his former communist ideological leanings β he had been a member of the South African Communist Party in his union days β Godongwana said, "There are practical solutions and practical problems against which, sometimes, abstract ideologies donβt hold."
By that time, Godongwana was viewed as a member of President Ramaphosa's inner circle, particularly as a member of the group sometimes called the "Chris Hani cabal". Also including Gwede Mantashe, Oscar Mabuyane, and Mondli Gungubele, this group was from the Eastern Cape and was influential in Ramaphosa's camp in the ANC.
In December 2001, while Godongwana was serving in the Eastern Cape Executive Council, the East London Magistrate's Court convicted him of drunk driving. He had been arrested in February and had failed a blood alcohol content test after he refused to submit to a Breathalyzer. He pled guilty to the charge, saying in mitigation that he had been driving because his niece had asked him for a lift, and he told press that it was "an error of judgement on my part, which I indeed regret. I am terribly sorry". He was fined R8,000 in lieu of serving 200 days in prison, with half of the fine suspended; he was also given a prison sentence of three years, suspended for the duration.
In August 2022, a masseuse at a game reserve in the Kruger National Park laid a complaint of sexual harassment against Godongwana, who she said had touched her inappropriately during a massage. He strongly denied the allegation. He told the Business Day that he believed the allegations were being used to "smear" him "to achieve narrow and selfish political ends" ahead of the ANC's upcoming national conference, and he undertook to continue "focusing on the critical tasks of revitalising our economy and protecting the fiscus". In late September, the National Prosecuting Authority said that, having assessed the evidence, it would not prosecute Godongwana.
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