I note remarks by Tito Mboweni that events in Zimbabwe and observations by the Pan Africanist Congress’s secretary general are weakening the rand. I was shocked that he joins in the crude analysis that has entered our political economy. He says the “fundamentals” are in place, yet explains the weakening rand in marginal factors that suggest naivete by investors.
The true beneficiaries of this sloganeering are local investors who have found a medicine against economic transformation by making imagined investor confidence a yardstick. Joining this chorus is an emerging group of black economic and financial gurus who conveniently fail to see obvious fundamental flaws in the economic order but are quick to elevate the system’s negligible benefits. Mboweni falls into this group.
Why, when the fundamentals are in place, do Zimbabwe or PAC statements determine the strength of the rand? Why do investors ignore our fundamentals but not Zimbabwe’s? Should South Africa respond to racially motivated pressure for interference in other countries’ affairs? David Kolamma, Johannesburg