Cape town - With the sudden resignation of now former finance minister Nhlanhla Nene and his replacement by former Reserve Bank Govenor, Tito Mboweni, we look at what the new Finance Minister can bring to the table.
Mboweni, is an avid avocado farmer and ardent proponent of a wealth tax and knows markets well. He is in fact special advisor to Goldman Sachs, an investment bank synonymous with the idea of capital markets. Mboweni knows Cabinet well as he was democratic South Africa’s first labour minister. From there he went on to succeed Chris Stals as governor of the SA Reserve Bank in 1999 and served in that role for 10 years.
Mboweni is, therefore, a co-architect of two essential South African systems: the labour market and monetary policy systems. Given his firm grasp of economics, this alone eminently qualifies him for the role as 8th finance minister of democratic South Africa*. The minister also holds a Masters in Development Economics, a field that South Africa, with its massive unemployment and poverty levels, can benefit from. He also has been out of government and in the private sector long enough to understand intimately the issues the private sector faces with the state’s macro and micro-economic management.
Mboweni will hit the ground running – he has 14 days to present a vitally important medium-term budget statement and three days in which to digest and comment on a decision by Moody’s Investors Services on whether or not they will downgrade South Africa’s investment rating status
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