The Young Communist League (YCL) on Thursday blamed the media for ”wittingly or unwittingly” misleading the public on comments made by South African Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni.
The league’s Buti Manamela held a teleconference with Mboweni on Thursday during which Mboweni’s comments about certain African National Congress (ANC) members and inflation-targeting were discussed.
”In the discussions, the governor indicated that the comments attributed to him were quoted out of context and were in no way a sign of disrespect to the ANC,” the YCL said in a statement.
”The YCL regrets the fact that the media had wittingly or unwittingly misled the public in this regard and duly committed to further engage with the Reserve Bank in future,” it added.
This comes after the YCL last week said comments by Mboweni were ”nonsense itself”.
”The YCL notes the dastardly comments attributed to Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni as they relate to the 52nd national conference of the ANC [and] calls by delegates to ease inflation targets,” it said in a statement on Saturday.
”Tito Mboweni is doing nothing but undermining the resolutions of the ANC. We call for the democratisation of the Reserve Bank, which accords civil society and political parties space to contribute,” it added at the time.
Mboweni last week said the Reserve Bank was not planning to change its 3% to 6% inflation target range.
”I receive my mandate from the government, so I haven’t heard anything from the government that seeks to change the mandate of the bank,” he said.
He was responding to a question that some within the ANC wanted to ”revisit” the inflation-targeting system.
”I can’t just respond to any members. The ANC is a big organisation, so many members. Some people talk a lot of nonsense, others talk a lot of things which don’t make any sense at all, the same way the Democratic Alliance, Inkatha Freedom Party [have] lots of members, anybody who can say anything,” Mboweni said.
The YCL on Thursday said the parties agreed to hold further discussions on inflation-targeting soon.
Mboweni’s office was not immediately available for comment. — Sapa