ANC takes Mboweni to task over SARB tweets
The African National Congress (ANC) has taken Finance Minister Tito Mboweni to task over his tweets on the South African Reserve Bank.
Mboweni tweeted on Tuesday that he is “convinced that the wrong resolutions were adopted by the governing party on the SARB”.
The ANC resolved to nationalise the central bank at its national conference in 2017.
As a long standing member of the ANC and its leadership structures, I know and understand our resolutions.I don’t need lectures on that.But on the SARB, I am convinced that we adopted a wrong resolution. What do we want to achieve?Our Strategic focus:Structural Economic Reforms.
— Tito Mboweni (@tito_mboweni) January 14, 2020
ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe said in a statement on Wednesday that "elected leaders of the ANC are not freelancers and remain bound by the overall prescripts of organizational values and discipline".
"Those who serve in leadership structures of our movement, especially within the National Executive Committee, the highest decision-making body in between conferences, are expected at all times to uphold and defend resolutions of the ANC on public platforms," he added.
This is not the first time that Mboweni has taken to twitter to express his views on the Reserve Bank.
In June last year, Mboweni took to twitter after the party's NEC lekgotla where secretary-general Ace Magashule made a statement that the bank’s mandate should be expanded.
Mboweni responded by saying that government was the only stakeholder that sets the mandate for the central bank.
Government sets the mandate for the SARB. There is no quantitative easing thing here. The primary mandate of the SA Reserve Bank is to “protect the value of the currency in the interest of balanced economic growth and development”.
— Tito Mboweni (@tito_mboweni) June 4, 2019