Page 34 - Demo

First Board of Directors of the SARB
On 9 May 1921, the SARB’s Board of Directors (Board) gathered in Room 39 at the Union Buildings in Pretoria for a preliminary meeting. The meeting place was the seat of power of the Union of South Africa, and remains so in contemporary South Africa.
The SARB did not have its own building. Acquiring and building offices became a common fixture during Board deliberations for more than a decade after that fateful meeting in May 1921.
At the meeting, the Board deliberated on a number of issues necessary to ensure the SARB would start its work, including a draft prospectus for the issue of capital stock, banknotes, the appointment of officials and income tax. The early SARB had stockholders − this remains the case in present-day South Africa – although these are now referred to as shareholders. A historical account of the SARB’s early period reflects that: “Of the various functions customarily performed by central banks, three or four were carried out by the Reserve Bank virtually from the beginning. These functions were those of custodian of the cash reserves of other banking institutions, bank of rediscount, lender of
last resort, bank of central clearance and settlement of interbank claims arising from the daily exchange of cheques, and custodian of the major part of the country’s gold and other foreign reserves. The function of issuing banknotes was assumed by the Bank some 91⁄2 months after it commenced operations.” (1921−1971, p 21).
At the preliminary meeting of May 1921, the Board approved several key appointments, including that of the SARB’s Secretary, Alec Burns. “On this occasion, the Board also authorised the Governor to enter into negotiations for the purchase of Erf 228 ... and approved ‘the steps taken for remodelling the old Government Library as temporary premises for the Bank’,” it is noted in the 50th anniversary publication (1921−1971, p 14).
In the 1920s, the site was host to a shop and residential dwelling. Former Transvaal President Paul Kruger’s house was in the same vicinity. The SARB spent all of 7 000 pounds to purchase the site. Erf 228, in Church Street, Pretoria, is the current address of South Africa’s Ministry of Finance.
On 29 July 1921, the SARB held its first ordinary general meeting of stockbrokers. At this meeting, the Board approved expenses relating to the printing of the country’s first banknotes under the SARB, for which delivery was expected between September 1921 and December 1921. The notes were to be in denominations of 1, 5, 20 and 100 South African pounds, totalling 8.75 million banknotes.
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