Tito Mboweni Minister of finance

Score:

3

Tito Mboweni seems to have been holed up in his home province of Limpopo for lockdown, where he has taken on the role of chief tour guide and promoter for the area.

He has also spent a lot of his time giving cooking lessons on Twitter, talking about his crusty old shoes and tweeting his dissatisfaction over the firing of the Zambian central bank governor Denny Kalyalya — a move that earned him a dressing-down from President Cyril Ramaphosa.

In the midst of the pandemic there were rumours that Mboweni was about to resign, but he put those to rest, tweeting: “We have work to do. So much to do: fix our economy!”

Mboweni’s main role during the pandemic has been reprioritising government budgets and ensuring SA gets much-needed funding from institutions such as the International Monetary Fund.

The panel of analysts rates his performance as fair — though he draws some criticism too.

Calland says Mboweni has managed to convey authority and competence at a time of enormous fragility, uncertainty and fiscal vulnerability.

“It speaks volumes [for] his track record and independent thinking that such a wide range of economic stakeholders continues to place trust in him, despite — or perhaps because of — the incompetence and dishonesty in his party,” he says. “For those able to read the tea leaves and between the lines, his Twitter account has become an important source of intelligence as well as hope.”

Sarakinsky, however, says Mboweni has been ambiguous about fiscal policy and the poor financial management of state spending on Covid-19. There has also been inadequate Treasury enforcement of supply chain management.

Booysen believes Mobweni’s “austerity budget was surreal in being out of touch, denialist and simply insufficient [for] the needs of the time”. Fikeni, on the other hand, says the minister has shown courage, strength and focus during the pandemic.

“He was prepared to walk a lonely journey as a financial steward,” he says. But Fikeni adds that the aspiring chef’s love for Twitter has put his boss in a difficult position.