{"id":166601,"date":"2017-03-28T10:15:51","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T08:15:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=166601"},"modified":"2017-03-28T10:15:51","modified_gmt":"2017-03-28T08:15:51","slug":"zuma-set-to-sack-gordhan-as-rand-continues-to-fall-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/166601\/zuma-set-to-sack-gordhan-as-rand-continues-to-fall-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Zuma set to sack Gordhan as rand continues to fall: report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The rand continued to lose ground against major currencies on Tuesday amid reports that president Jacob Zuma is set to axe finance minister, Pravin Gordhan.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/politics\/articles\/2017-03-28\/zuma-said-to-tell-south-african-communists-he-s-firing-gordhan-j0t60aj9\" target=\"_blank\">Bloomberg<\/a>, citing three people with knowledge of the matter, said that Zuma told senior leaders of the South African Communist Party (SACP) of his intention to boot Gordhan.<\/p>\n<p>Rumours have been circulating for some time among analysts that a cabinet reshuffle is on the cards.<\/p>\n<p>The rand tumbled 3% against the dollar in trade on Monday, after the president cancelled an international investor roadshow, and ordered Gordhan and his deputy, Mcebisi Jonas, back to the country \u201curgently\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>And on Tuesday morning (1oh00), the\u00a0 rand continued to lose ground against major currencies:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Dollar\/Rand \u2013 1.73% weaker at <strong>R12.96<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Pound\/Rand \u2013 1.81% weaker at <strong>R16.26<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Euro\/Rand \u2013\u00a0 1.54% weaker at <strong>R14.05<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Zizi Kodwa, a spokesman for the ANC, told Bloomberg that its sources were misinformed about Gordhan&#8217;s sacking.<\/p>\n<p>However, Enoch Godongwana, the ANC\u2019s head of economic policy, said: \u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s true that Gordhan will be fired. If that were to happen, it would be tragic for the economy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Jonathan Hertz, chief executive officer of Peregrine Holdings, warned on Monday that if Gordhan or his deputy, Mcebisi Jonas, are fired, \u201cthe selloff will be vigorous&#8230;there will be a shudder in the market. I think you could see R14 (to the dollar).\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wayne McCurrie, a fund manager at Ashburton Investments, said that if Zuma did fire Gordhan, the rand would not shoot back to R17 to the dollar, a level it last touched following Zuma&#8217;s sacking of the previous finance minister,\u00a0Nhlanhla Nene, in December 2015.<\/p>\n<p>McCurrie said that commodity prices had since improved, as had the country&#8217;s drought situation. He warned, however, that it could go to R15 to the dollar, &#8216;easily&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>Manisha Morar, an analyst at ETM Analytics told Bloomberg that a cabinet reshuffle would raise the possibility of a downgrade &#8220;coming sooner than later&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Rating agencies S&amp;P and Fitch both rank the sovereign debt of Africa&#8217;s most industrialised economy one level above junk, while Moody&#8217;s puts it two notches higher.<\/p>\n<p>Moody&#8217;s, which put South Africa on negative watch in its latest review, is due to review that rating on April 7, followed by S&amp;P at the beginning of June.<\/p>\n<p>Research analyst at Nomura, Peter Attard Montalto said that, should Zuma fire Gordhan, an immediate rating cut from at least one of the ratings agencies would be likely.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/166357\/why-zuma-wants-gordhan-to-come-back-to-south-africa-analysts\/\" target=\"_blank\">Why Zuma wants Gordhan to come back to South Africa: analysts<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The rand continued to lose ground against major currencies on Tuesday amid reports that president Jacob Zuma is set to axe finance minister, Pravin Gordhan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":132640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26,6397],"class_list":["post-166601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline","tag-zuma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166601"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":166619,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166601\/revisions\/166619"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}