Page 204 - SARB: 100-Year Journey

As Barbara Hogan recalled in her interview, the debate within the Constitutional Assembly’s committees was not singularly about the central bank, but also about, among others, the Auditor-General and the National Treasury.
While the apartheid-era senior officials in various institutions, including the SARB, may have felt that the installation of new senior technocrats across economic management institutions was a threat, the reality is that the overall institutional architecture could not be reconstructed by officials whose own experience had been accumulated under an opaque and unaccountable system.
The installation of Trevor Manuel as Minister of Finance and Maria Ramos as Director-General of the Finance Department (later the National Treasury) was part of a critical institutional intervention by the new government. The Minister of Finance has oversight over the SARB, but does not interfere in its day-to-day operations. The Director-General has to work closely with the central bank to develop and implement various policy measures to protect and advance South Africa’s economic interests.
The appointment of Mboweni as Governor in 1999 bolstered the process of institution building by skilled professionals who had first-hand experience in the making of the new Constitution. Mboweni was young. So were Manuel, Ramos and others. Their youth, coupled with their drive to reform a democratic South Africa’s macroeconomic institutions, infused new energy as the SARB worked in tandem with the National Treasury to regularise the country’s economic affairs, and restore its place and standing in the global community.
Stals and others managed the difficult debt standstill negotiation process. Stals was also the bridge to the new democratic era. He served a second term under Mandela and provided guidance to Mboweni before a formal handover in 1999. The succession was orderly and dignified, and befitting of a central bank of the SARB’s stature.
Mboweni, Manuel, Ramos and countless others on either side of the SARB and the National Treasury helped build the country’s foreign currency reserves while simultaneously addressing its perilous net open forward currency position. This is one of the most significant achievements in the post-apartheid epoch.
A young Lesetja Kganyago joined the SARB for a brief stint. A lack of hands-on policy work at the Bank made the National Treasury a natural fit for Kganyago. He worked at the National Treasury for 16 years, rising through the ranks and succeeded Ramos as Director-General. He answered the call to return to the SARB in 2011, and the rest of that history is still being written.
Mboweni now presides over fiscal policy as Minister of Finance. Governor No. 8 and Governor No. 10 joined institutional forces in 2020 at the onset of COVID-19 on the opposite ends of macroeconomic policy, crafting responses to cushion South Africa from the demand and supply shocks that ensued from the pandemic. The efficacy of this response will be for future generations to assess – much like the SARB’s responses to other crises have been documented in this publication, starting with the gold standard.
The SARB is now marching on to its next chapter, anchored by a purposeful journey and a vision etched in the South African Constitution.
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