South Africa's Zuma Removes Nene As Finance Minister

Nhlanhla Nene

South Africa's president has fired the country's finance minister who served less than two years. On Wednesday, President Jacob Zuma said Nhlanhla Nene will be replaced by David van Rooyen, a former mayor and member of parliament who has served on financial committees.

Associated Press report continues:

In a statement from the presidency, Zuma said Nene, South Africa's first black finance minister, did well in a difficult situation. The president said Nene will be deployed to "another strategic position."

South Africa's currency, the rand, recently dropped to new lows against the U.S. dollar, closing Wednesday at 14.52 rand to US$1.

Last week, ratings agency Fitch downgraded the country to BBB-. Standard and Poor's maintained South Africa's BBB- foreign currency credit rating, but revised the outlook to negative.

Meanwhile TIMESLIVE reports that President Jacob Zuma on Wednesday announced the removal of Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene from the Finance portfolio in Cabinet.

 “I have decided to remove Mr Nhlanhla Nene as Minister of Finance, ahead of his deployment to another strategic position,” Zuma said in a statement.

Zuma said that Nene had done well since his appointment as Minister of Finance during a difficult economic climate. 

Zuma has appointed ANC member of parliament, David Van Rooyen, as the new Minister of Finance.

Van Rooyen served as the Whip of the Standing Committee on Finance and as Whip of the Economic Transformation Cluster.

He was also a former executive mayor of Merafong Municipality and a former North West provincial chairperson of the South African Local Government Association. 

"The new deployment of Mr Nene will be announced in due course.