RON DERBY: The presidents who want central banks to print money for them

In pursuit of their grandiose plans and ill-conceived economic scenarios, many leaders in the past century have found themselves in some or other dispute with their treasuries and ultimately their central bank governors. There are some legendary tales of such fights, involving leaders of old such as Uganda's Idi Amin or Zaire's Mobutu Sese Seko. For them, the main responsibility of central bankers was to print money for their governments, and ultimately for themselves. The only order that mattered was whether to speed up the presses, a rather simple instruction for these educated money-men in their administration.

Such behaviour showed scant regard for the inflationary dragon it could ultimately unleash, and the resultant collapse of the currency.

African dictators have provided several textbook examples of how not to run administrations, but the struggles of these gentlemen and women in the high echelons of state finances aren't isolated to the backwaters of the African continent. One of the hardest jobs going at the moment is being at the head of Turkey's central bank. Faced with inflationary pressures, to go against the wishes of that country's most powerful president in modern history, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and to raise rates, is actually to announce one's resignation.

While some hold up the US Federal Reserve as a beacon of independence and sophistication in a world blinded by the rise of populism, the Democratic-friendly chair in Janet Yellen is unlikely to see a second term. President Donald Trump, a property man at heart, has publicly stated his preference for low rates in the world's biggest economy. This is a path that Yellen and her team are not taking.

So in the global context of still uncertain growth, the difficulties faced in recent months by the Reserve Bank and its governor, Lesetja Kganyago, make sense. They show that leaders such as President Jacob Zuma have run out of political capital to address structural defects in the economy and make some of the difficult decisions that must come with such resolutions. Under the helm of such leaders, the treasury needs to be raided and its men and women — responsible for both fiscal and monetary policy — reined in. It's a story that is only further complicated by a president whose ultimate motives are not known to anyone outside of his ever-shrinking inner circle.

It's no surprise, then, that there's been an attack on the Reserve Bank, led by calls for nationalising the bank, an exercise that doesn't change the status quo.

Reviewing its mandate of inflation targeting has been a worthwhile battle to have with worker movements for many a moon, but in this ANC war, it's been one that's been taken up by a faction inspired by Bell Pottinger.

It was a cause that almost kept us from the July surprise by the Reserve Bank this week. It was always on the cards, up until the public protector in her infinite wisdom decided that for the greater public good, parliament had to look at changing the mandate for the central bank. She rallied against its inflation-targeting mandate, urging that it rather concentrate on the overall health of the South African economy.

Faced with that political battle, I'm of the view that the cental bank wouldn't have cut rates. Were it not for the protector withdrawing her challenge and "hopefully" realising she had overstepped, the bank would have found it difficult to justify a rate cut without denting its credibility. It would be faced by charges that it had buckled under pressure.

The cut in the end won't do much for our immediate prospects, but imagine just for a second if former finance minister Nhlanhla Nene had never been fired in the first place. Would it possibly have marked something of the final turn in confidence that we so badly need?