Former minister Pravin Gordhan admitted to hospital

Former Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan. (Gallo Images/Sunday Times/Esa Alexander)

Former Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan has been admitted to hospital, his family has said.

A brief statement on Tuesday evening, issued on behalf of the former minister's family, said he was receiving "the best available medical care". It did not give further details of his condition.

"The family has requested privacy during this difficult time," it read.

Updates would be given in due course, the statement added.

In March, Gordhan announced that he would be retiring after the May election.

A year ago, Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Public Enterprises had to cancel its meeting with Gordhan due to his ill health. Gordhan told the committee at the time that a specialist doctor advised him not to travel by air.

A trained pharmacist, Gordhan is a struggle veteran whose career as a politician and activist spanned more than five decades before his retirement. 

Following the first democratic election in 1994, Gordhan served in various government positions before joining SARS in 1998. He became its commissioner the following year and his decade-long stint at the agency has been widely praised. During that time, he also received international recognition with key appointments on various forums and committees at the World Customs Organisation and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

In May 2009, former president Jacob Zuma appointed Gordhan as minister of finance, succeeding Trevor Manuel.

Gordhan played a key role in resisting Zuma's efforts to hand over control of National Treasury to the Guptas, the State Capture Inquiry found.

In May 2014, he was replaced by Nhlanhla Nene as minister of finance - who was then dismissed by Zuma within a year for not backing a nuclear deal.

After a brief and disastrous appointment of the unknown figure Des van Rooyen, Zuma reluctantly appointed Gordhan as finance minister again.

Gordhan then had to fend off even more aggressive attempts to capture the Treasury, and won praise for his insistence in defending state resources – despite being hounded by the ANC and Cabinet, the National Prosecuting Authority and Hawks.

In 2017, Zuma fired Gordhan and replaced him with Malusi Gigaba. Gordhan was returned to Cabinet by the newly appointed President Cyril Ramaphosa in 2018.

While widely admired for his work as head of the SARS and his resistance to state capture, Gordhan's legacy has been soured by his six years as minister of public enterprises.

Apart from the continued woes at Eskom, Transnet saw a significant deterioration during this time. Gordhan has also been criticised for a controversial decision to sell 51% of SAA for R1 to the Takatso consortium, which was supposed to inject R3 billion into the business. The deal, announced in 2021, was finally scrapped earlier this year.

This is a developing story.