Pravin Jamnadas Gordhan

Finance Minister, South Africa

Hon. Gordhan was appointed Co-Chairman of the Transitional Executive Council in 1991 that oversaw the change to a democratically-elected government in South Africa. He became a member of parliament, moving to the South Africa Revenue Service in 1998. Until then, the country had enjoyed a ‘culture of non-payment’ in middle-class and corporate life as in the townships. Hon. Gordhan and his team controversially offered repeated tax amnesties to defaulters, bringing tens of thousands of new entrants, rich and poor, into the system and ensuring that they kept on paying. He is therefore best known for the increase in tax take with no increase in tax rates.