Page 155 - SARB: 100-Year Journey

macroeconomic approaches of government,” Netshitenzhe said. “The decision was taken a few years after 1994 that Tito would be appointed Governor.”
Momoniat explains the thinking: “Chris Stals was a talented man. He was able to work with the leadership. But once you went even one layer down a lot of the officials there [at the SARB] were resistant to change. That’s why it was a bold decision Madiba made to get Tito appointed Governor. Someone like Lesetja was in the SARB. He didn’t survive there too long; just the atmosphere. I remember the first lot of people who went there were all disillusioned because they were given junior positions.”
Mboweni was Minister of Labour. He had introduced reforms to the country’s labour legislation. He was considered somewhat radical and an unconventional pick for Governor. In Stals’s recollection, he is the one who recommended to the political powers that be that Mboweni serve as the Governor’s adviser because the SARB Act states that whoever occupies the position must have banking experience.
With a shaking of hands, Governor Stals handed over the reins to Mboweni in August 1999 during a gala dinner held at Gallagher Estate, Midrand. /SARB
“On the 4th of July 1998, on the veranda of Oliver Tambo House, President Thabo Mbeki, then Deputy President Mbeki, myself, Alec Erwin, Trevor Manuel and Chris Stals held a press briefing, at which it was announced that I would be leaving the Cabinet and be going to the Reserve Bank as adviser to the Governor. There was no position that says ‘Governor-designate.’ It doesn’t exist,” Mboweni said.
A handover gala dinner was arranged at Gallagher Estate, Midrand, towards the end of 1999, when Stals gave his ‘Twelve Commandments of Central Banking’ speech.
Guma was there. He recalls: “No food was served until about 11.30 in the evening. Then, the starter was served. At midnight, exactly at midnight, Dr Stals stood up. Mr Mboweni stood up. There was a shaking of hands. And there was a formal handover that Mboweni will now be Governor.”
Mboweni had spent most of 1998 and 1999 meeting SARB staff at head office, the branches and the subsidiaries. He went on international trips with Stals, visiting institutions in Europe and the US.
Stals accepted that the time had come for him to exit. “I received the greatest satisfaction from the first loan we could arrange with foreign banking institutions after the restrictive international boycotts and sanctions against South Africa were lifted. I arranged this loan, which was for US$3 billion, with the same 32 foreign banks that we negotiated with on the debt standstill.” Stals adds: “We also gained normal access to and re-established normal relationships with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.”
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