By Tiisetso Motsoeneng
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - President Jacob Zuma appointed Pravin Gordhan finance minister on Sunday, in a dramatic U-turn that gave South Africa its third finance chief in a week after a selling frenzy in the markets.
The shock announcement restoring Gordhan to the post sent the rand surging nearly five percent on Sunday evening. The low was 14.96 to the dollar.
Zuma sacked Nhlanhla Nene from the ministry late on Wednesday, sparking a wave of criticism and financial turmoil, and replaced him with the relatively unknown lawmaker David van Rooyen.
The removal of Nene, who was keen to rein in government spending in Africa's most industrialised economy, sent the rand currency to record lows, sparked a sell-off in bank stocks and sent yields in both local and dollar-denominated debt soaring.
The JSE All-share index .JALSH lost 169.6 billion rand ($10.68 billion) between Thursday and Friday.
"On the 9th of December 2015, I announced the appointment of a new Minister of Finance, Mr David van Rooyen," Sunday's statement from the presidency said.
"I have received many representations to reconsider my decision. As a democratic government, we emphasise the importance of listening to the people and to respond to their views."
The presidency statement said Gordhan's role would include "promoting and strengthening the fiscal discipline and prudence" and "working with the financial sector so that its stability is preserved".
It also called for "adherence to the set expenditure ceiling while maintaining a stable trajectory of our debt portfolio, as set out in the February 2015 Budget".
Speaking to Reuters shortly after news of his appointment broke, Gordhan said: "I'm not in the job yet. Not until I'm sworn in tomorrow morning at 10 a.m." local time (0800 GMT).
He said a news conference was scheduled for 1000 GMT on Monday after his swearing in.
Gordhan held the post of finance minister from 2009 to 2014, when he was replaced with Nene and moved to the post of minister for cooperative governance and traditional affairs.
The Sunday presidency statement said van Rooyen would become the new minister of cooperative governance and traditional affairs.
"Critics would say having a finance minister serving only two days doesn't bode well for the reputation of South Africa," said Mohammed Nalla, head of research at Nedbank Capital.
"International investors are probably thinking: why didn?t the president make a much more considered decision in the first place?"
(Reporting by Tiisetso Motsoeneng; Editing by Jon Boyle)
