[DEBATE] : Pravin Gordhan: A political profile

[Patrick Bond]

Dominic Tweedie wrote:
> ... One of the papers said that really, Trevor Manuel is back where he
> was, as head of MERG, and chief draftsman of the RDP. Was Manuel head of
> MERG? Bond must know. Bond must tell! Otherwise, Bond is going to get tarred
> with the revisionist version of the MERG brush, if you see what I mean. In
> other words if Manuel does stuff and then says, this is what MERG would have
> wanted, or this is what the RDP would have been like, then Bond would have
> to be ready to retaliate.

Standing guard over traditions!

In reality, Manuel got Neil Morrison and Tito Mboweni at Shell House to 
kill Merg, in November 1993, at Vella Pillay's Tambo Lecture at Wits 
when Pillay said the Reserve Bank should not be independent. After the 
next Monday's Business Day, it was the end of Pillay's career.

Manuel came to only a couple of the RDP drafting meetings. I had the 
feeling he sensed it would go nowhere and so he put his time into the 
Transitional Executive Council in Dec 1993 and Jan 1994.

Which crazy newspaper are you referring to, Dominic?