SARB shareholder calls for Mboweni apology

Tito Mboweni, the governor of the South African Reserve Bank, was asked by shareholder Mario Pretorius on Friday to apologise for a comment made at the bank’s annual general meeting (AGM).

At the AGM, held on Thursday, Pretorius asked Mboweni to bring the meeting to order.

The governor refused and Pretorius said “shocking.”

This prompted a further response from the governor, who said that Pretorius should not address him in the manner used by white people when talking to black people during the apartheid era.

“I shall not permit you to talk to me like whites used to talk to blacks,” Mboweni said.

Pretorius, in an open letter to Mboweni, said he requested an apology for the accusation that he spoke to the governor in a racist manner.

“It may be argued that this was a reply from you in the heat of the moment, and should you apologise immediately in the public media and personally by way of a reciprocal letter, I shall accept your apology unconditionally,” Pretorius said.

“Should you refrain to apologise, I will then accept that you are, in fact, a racist,” Pretorius added.

Mboweni’s office could not be immediately reached for comment.—Sapa