The man behind the position

Tito Mboweni, a former ANC national executive committee member, was minister of labour in Nelson Mandela’s Cabinet.

In August, 1999, he became the first black governor of the SA Reserve Bank, a position he held for 10 years until 2009.

Mboweni took over at the Bank from Chris Stals.

He was minister of labour under Mandela from 1994 before he went to the Reserve Bank as advisor to the governor.

Born in Tzaneen, Limpopo, on March 16, 1959, Mboweni did his BCom degree at the University of the North and studied at Lesotho National University before completing a masters degree in development economics at the University of East Anglia in England.

He has now been plucked from his farming life in Tzaneen to steer the SA economy.

Mboweni takes over as finance minister from Nhlanhla Nene, who apologised to the nation for having shown poor judgment in meeting the Gupta family during the years when he was deputy finance minister and then finance minister under Jacob Zuma, and for not having disclosed these meetings earlier.

It was reported on Sunday that the apology caught Ramaphosa by surprise.

The Economic Freedom Fighters rejected his apology, while the Democratic Alliance went on to ask the public protector to investigate a Public Investment Corporation deal involving Nene’s son to determine if Nene abused his power in any way in ensuring that deal was signed, or whether there was any conflict of interest.

Nene was axed in December 2015 by Zuma.

He told the state capture commission last week that he believed that happened because he was reluctant to sign off on a more than R1 trillion nuclear build programme with Russia.

Ramaphosa brought Nene back as finance minister earlier this year.