Johannesburg | Wednesday
SOUTH Africans should show more confidence in their own country instead of taking their money offshore, SA Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni said on Tuesday night.
Interviewed on Metro FM radio, he said banks were encouraging South Africans to take their money offshore. This meant a capital flight, which created a mood that investments in South Africa were only safe offshore.
”This is psychological propaganda and we must change this perception.”
Mboweni appealed to wealthier South Africans not to invest offshore as their money was useful at home. He stressed there were many opportunities to invest locally.
Many South Africans were being advised by their banks to invest offshore, and Mboweni said they should question their financial institutions on why they were being given such advice or suggestions.
”The psychology of investing offshore in my view is wrong,” the governor said.
In the same interview, Mboweni was asked whether he supported the Myburgh Commission.
He replied that President Thabo Mbeki had consulted widely on whether to take action on the slide of the rand with the Cabinet and with Mboweni himself.
”I was initially doubtful of the benefits of such an investigation,” Mboweni said. He added however that this feeling changed when SA Chamber of Business CEO Kevin Wakeford made claims that institutions and individuals had enriched themselves at the currency’s expense and handed evidence of such to the presidency. – Sapa