This follows ANC’s (CEO) secretary-general Ace Magashule on Tuesday suggesting the party had instructed or would instruct the SA Reserve Bank to expand its mandate.
As expected Pretoria- in the form of finance minister Tito Mboweni objected.
The minister laid out chapter and verse of how the Constitution works, how it protects the central bank’s independence and how the country’s economics architecture is set up to make the Finance Minister the apex political authority over finance. There is a dotted line between the Finance Ministry and the central bank and a relationship not of authority but of consultation and, one hopes, geniality.
In other words, Mboweni was telling his own party, the governing ANC, that it could not tell the SARB what to do and when to do it; and if it wanted to, it would need to go through him, not acting as a member of the ANC, but as the Finance Minister.
This resulted in ANC’s heavyweights Mzwandile Masina, Tony Yengeni airing their concerns and supporting their ‘CEO’.
Governer Lesetja Kganyago has continued to stand firm amidst all the brouhaha. His position expires in November 2019 though, and both SA and international investors need certainty about the position of the governor of the SARB.
Question is who will Pres Cyril Matamela Ramaphosa listen to, as his power is being tested and questioned- Luthuli House or Pretoria?
Image (At loggerheads. ANC’s SG Ace Magashule and Pres Cyril Matamela Ramaphosa, will they ever see eye- to- eye)?
