The appointment of the new Minister of Finance, Tito Mboweni, has been widely welcomed as “market friendly” in South Africa.
However, the minister has been in “political exile” for nearly a decade and his views on the economy may not be as “market friendly” as was first assumed.
For example, on 27 April 2018 the minister posted two Tweets as follows:
What is not clear is whether this was a flirtation with “radical economic transformation”, or a conversion to “radical economic transformation”.
We now need to know whether the minister actually supports extending state-ownership in the mining sector, establishing a state-owned bank and creating a Sovereign Wealth Fund, which may have major implications for investment and job creation in South Africa.
We, therefore, call on the minister to explain his views or face a grilling on them at his first appearance before the finance committee following the medium-term budget policy statement in Parliament.