{"id":273229,"date":"2018-09-21T16:18:47","date_gmt":"2018-09-21T14:18:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=273229"},"modified":"2018-09-21T16:18:47","modified_gmt":"2018-09-21T14:18:47","slug":"anc-sows-confusion-over-central-bank-stance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/273229\/anc-sows-confusion-over-central-bank-stance\/","title":{"rendered":"ANC sows confusion over central bank stance"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The battle over South African economic policy within the ruling African National Congress was laid bare on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The party first released a statement, issued by the communications team headed by spokesman Pule Mabe, effectively calling for the central bank to cut interest rates. That was soon retracted, with the head of the economic transformation committee, Enoch Godongwana, espousing the independence of the institution.<\/p>\n

Mabe has backed former leader Jacob Zuma, while Godongwana has long been seen as being in President Cyril Ramaphosa\u2019s camp.<\/p>\n

While Ramaphosa ousted Zuma as national president in February, he\u2019s struggled to assert authority over factions loyal to the ex-leader. That\u2019s hampered efforts to revamp an economy that has slipped into recession.<\/p>\n

The conflicting statements came even as the government announced new measures to boost growth on Friday and weeks after Johannesburg\u2019s Sunday Times newspaper reported that senior party officials were plotting with Zuma to remove Ramaphosa.<\/p>\n

The ANC \u201cimplores the committee members to prioritize the plight of poor South Africans,\u201d it said in a statement before the South African Reserve Bank\u2019s Monetary Policy Committee announced its decision to keep its key interest rate unchanged on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ANC believes that monetary policy is a critical legislative instrument in driving growth, creation of jobs and reduction of the capital costs in the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Godongwana followed up. The earlier statement \u201cwas unfortunately issued without the requisite consultations,\u201d the ANC said in a statement issued by Godongwana. \u201cThe ANC respects the independence of the SARB.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ramaphosa has clamped down on corruption that marred Zuma\u2019s nine years in charge and has championed orthodox economic policies since becoming president.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe divided nature of the ANC is by now obvious and there for everyone to see,\u201d said Tinyiko Makulele, a political analyst at the University of Pretoria. \u201cThis particular issue of the statement regarding interest rate cuts, in my view, has more to do with lobbying and disagreement about the proposal to curtail the powers of the Reserve Bank.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Read: A $50 billion fight about who owns South Africa\u2019s central bank<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The battle over South African economic policy within the ruling African National Congress was laid bare on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":221605,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-273229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273229","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\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273229"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":273231,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273229\/revisions\/273231"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}