Former deputy finance minister Mcebisi Jonas said the "likelihood of crazy policy choices are slim".
Jonas, who was removed as finance minister in the midnight Cabinet reshuffle, was the keynote speaker at the Directors Event in Sandton on Friday.
The ANC’s policy conference will take place at the end of June, and final decisions will be taken in December during its national conference.
Jonas’s comments come after calls for a shift in economic policy.
He warned that populism could create mistrust, and possibly lead to disinvestment as well as a skills migration.
Growing populism was one of the threats he identified, along with the downgrade, that needed to be addressed.
He said there was something fundamentally unconstitutional about populism, and that it distracted from what should be addressed.
He said populism offered "absolute freedom to the bullshitter to say whatever the audience will enjoy hearing".
It thus appeals to "desperate politicians", of which, he said, SA had a few.
"We need as a country the wisdom and courage to resist bullshit. Especially bullshit that divides us as South Africans. And bullshit that threatens to destroy the economy," Jonas said.
He said much of the populist rhetoric surrounding radical economic transformation and the need to eradicate white monopoly capital. This cast people such as industrialists and farmers as the enemy.
Jonas also said there was a lot of economic illiteracy in SA’s leadership, and "that is why people talk about the rand and picking it up".
Jonas warned that people should not take the nuclear deal lightly.
"Sometimes I get a feeling that South Africans don’t realise how serious this is, how damaging this will be," Jonas said. He warned the deal was not trying to address an immediate need for electricity, as it would take years to implement.
He said he did not think the deal was driven to address poor energy availability and energy security in the country.
"It is other interests that are driving this," Jonas said.
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