Rating agencies should not enter debates about succession in the ANC or Cabinet reshuffles, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe said on Monday.
S&P Global’s SA and sub-Saharan Africa MD Konrad Reuss reportedly said a Cabinet reshuffle could hurt SA’s assessment by the ratings agency.
SA has been on tenterhooks over the prospect of a ratings downgrade since the removal of former finance minister Nhlanhla Nene at the end of 2015 sent shockwaves through the markets and political.
"We are not working for a rating agent, we are working for a country … once they begin telling us who should be the next president … when to reshuffle … then it is dangerous," said Mantashe, speaking at a media briefing following the ANC’s January lekgotla.
"He has entered into a space that doesn’t belong to him," said Mantashe in apparent reference to Reuss.
Speculation over a Cabinet reshuffle has been rife in recent weeks, with the latest reports saying former Eskom acting CE Brian Molefe was set to be sworn into Parliament as an MP at the request of the ANC’s North West chapter.
But Mantashe said this was not an "automatic" process as parties were bound by the lists that they had submitted to the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC).
Turning to the regulation of the financial sector, Mantashe said the ANC had called on the government to develop a programme to de-racialise and transform the "highly concentrated financial sector".
This decision at the lekgotla comes as banks face increasing pressure, particularly after the closure of the bank accounts of the Gupta-owned Oakbay.
The ANC’s two-day lekgotla focused on "radical socioeconomic transformation". According to the ANC, this referred to the "fundamental change in the structure, systems, institutions and patterns of ownership and control of the economy in favour of all South Africans, especially the poor, the majority of whom are African and female".
Mantashe said the ANC reiterated that the National Development Plan and the Nine Point Plan for economic growth remained "relevant" in achieving economic development.
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