Gigaba: I'm not going anywhere
New Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba says he's been appointed to do a job and he is not going anywhere.
Gigaba briefed media in Pretoria following after a handover meeting with former Minister Pravin Gordhan.
The meeting follows the decision by credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's to downgrade South Africa to junk status.
Minister Gigaba says while the downgrade is a setback, South Africans have no reason to be despondent.
Gigaba says government remains committed to improving economic growth.
He described the handover meeting with Gordhan as very positive and says he doesn't believe Gordhan is plotting to undermine him.
"If the minister was mobilising against me, he would not have met me. He would not have called me in actual fact. He initiated the call on Friday, congratulated me, offered to meet, but both of us on Friday were a bit helter-skelter. We agreed to move the meeting to Monday and yesterday we agreed to shift it to this morning, which happened. I don't think he is mobilising against me. This is not personal."
Gigaba says he doesn't view the ratings downgrade as a vote of no confidence in his leadership.
"I'm not resigning. I'm not going anywhere. I have a job I have been assigned by the leader of the movement and by the president of the country and this is not personal."