JOHANNESBURG – The ANC is set for a collision course with the SA Reserve Bank after a post-national executive committee lekgotla reiterated that the central bank’s mandate should be extended to include job creation and economic growth. Party secretary-general Ace Magashule said the lekgotla tasked the party’s deployees to implement the resolutions of its 2017 national conference in full.
“It also directed the ANC government to consider constituting a task team to explore quantity-easing measures to address intergovernmental debts, to make funds available for developmental purposes,” Magashule said. “These measures should consider inflationary impact on the currency and the poor, and all must be done to cushion them.”
North-West University Business School economist Professor Raymond Parsons said: “It is essential that the constitutional mandate of the bank to provide price stability in the interests of balanced and sustainable growth be protected, even more so at a time when South Africa is anxious to boost investor confidence.”
“Our view as Absa is that the independence and mandate of the Reserve Bank are entrenched in the South African Constitution, regardless of the shareholding of the bank,” Lucas-Bull said.
Professor Parsons et al are confused and displaying lack of knowledge of macroeconomics. There’s nothing wrong with the SARB’s mandate being extended to include employment and growth. Other central banks have similar dual mandates