Page 199 - SARB: 100-Year Journey

Lesetja Kganyago, Governor, 2014–present
Lesetja Kganyago returned to the SARB in 2011 as a Deputy Governor and was appointed Governor in 2014. He had spent the previous 16 years at the National Treasury, where he rose to the rank of Director-General.
He was born in 1965 in Alexandra, a township in northern Johannesburg. Before he began his schooling he moved to the area now known as Limpopo with his mother. There, Kganyago completed his schooling. He returned to Johannesburg and enrolled to study at the University of the Witwatersrand but completed his BCom degree at the University of South Africa. He also read for an MSc in Economics at the SOAS University of London.
Kganyago’s career in policymaking placed him at the centre of South Africa’s responses to two major economic crises. He was Director-General at the National Treasury during the 2008–09 global financial crisis and subsequent recession. When the COVID-19 pandemic also turned into an economic shock in early 2020, Kganyago was Governor.
In the latter role and as Chairperson of the MPC, Governor Kganyago oversaw the monetary policy response to the COVID-19 supply and demand shock. Between January and July 2020, the MPC cut interest rates by 300 basis points to 3.5%, hitting a historic low. Furthermore, the SARB provided regulatory relief to the banking sector and co-designed the R200 billion Loan Guarantee Scheme.
Central banks are synonymous with measured and steady decision-making. However, the SARB acted swiftly in deploying the policy tools at its disposal to cushion the economy from the COVID-19 fallout.
“How were we able to do it with so much speed?” Kganyago asked rhetorically. “Because monetary policy had buffers. Inflation was at, or below, 4.5%, and projected to end the year lower, which meant monetary policy continued to have the space for us to respond as long as we could deploy monetary policy buffers.”
The SARB worked closely with the National Treasury and commercial banks to deliver a coordinated response to the COVID-19 crisis.
At the time of publication, Kganyago chaired the Committee of Central Bank Governors of the Southern African Development Community; co-chaired the Financial Stability Board’s Regional Consultative Group for Sub-Saharan Africa; and chaired the Financial Stability Board’s Standing Committee on Standards Implementation.
Between 18 January 2018 and 17 January 2021, Kganyago chaired the International Monetary and Financial Committee, the primary advisory board to the IMF Board of Governors.
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