I had dozens of conversations with the late Tito Mboweni since first encountering him as the Reserve Bank governor two decades ago. He always spoke more than I did in those conversations. A very serious conversationalist, he would go on about anything economic — from the price of coffee in central Africa to how South Africa’s progress was not fast enough.
The Mboweni I knew had become a reluctant politician. He dragged his feet when President Cyril Ramaphosa invited him to be finance minister in 2018. The communists in the Zuma era had elbowed him out.
He was proud enough, if not arrogant enough, to remind all who cared that he was a minister under Nelson Mandela at 35. And became a central bank governor also at a young age. His departure from the government — when Ramaphosa fired him — showed a disciplined side to the man.
Mboweni had asked to be relieved of the job a number of times, as it was supposedly a short-term measure. The release did not come, and instead Ramaphosa begged him to stay on for several reasons, including the difficulty of finding a suitable candidate with both political and market approval.
How he left the position was odd; I remember calling him about 8pm to see if the rumour of his impending departure was true. He fobbed me off, bragged about the Indian restaurant that was about to serve him a sumptuous dinner, and quickly ended the call by saying in his baritone and laughter: “Someone more important than you is calling.”
I learnt later he had had lunch with the president earlier, and his thirst for Indian food was revived by the lamb curry that was served. A few moments later the president was on TV, announcing Enoch Godongwana as Mboweni’s successor.
Many in the ANC panicked about his departure, fearing Mboweni would speak out, and criticised the president for the undignified manner in which he ejected him. I’m told the president did call Mboweni just a few moments before the official announcement.
What was odd was why the topic was not raised while they enjoyed their curry.
As reluctant as he was to become finance minister, he created the single most important intervention when he crafted the Operation Vulindlela reform programme, whose name was influenced by OR Tambo’s political-military resistance against apartheid in the 1980s.
It is this initiative that gives Ramaphosa a semblance of a programme and plan. Without it, his presidency would be planless.
Ever the maverick, Mboweni knew he was clever and did not need anyone’s approval, making him a difficult man for his colleagues. Having been one of the three Ts — Tito Mboweni, Trevor Manuel and Thabo Mbeki — who built institutions and South Africa’s revered macroeconomic framework, he was disdainful of political opponents. He suffered no fools. Were they created by an epoch, or were they themselves creators of an epoch?
He was ambidextrous in his ability to chew on Karl Marx on one hand and reel out nuggets from economic literature on the other, making him a well-rounded politician. Sometimes he was thin-skinned — and sometimes hilarious.
He was a pain to his communications colleagues because of his tendency to tweet, often in the middle of the night. Some of the tweets were problematic, some funny, like when he threatened to go to war with editors.
Without context, Mboweni tweeted: “Wars start in different ways. Spears and shields, gun powder, bullets and now through media: printed and electronic (for example trade wars by a super president), and then Social media! Well, the SA Editors must be Editors! If needs be, we will be forced into the fight, War!”
In a second tweet, Mboweni said he was a “product of the warrior commanders of the mighty Zulu army” and “there will be collateral damage”.
The next day, he apologised for his bellicose language and stated there was an intelligence-driven attempt to make his life in office difficult. We will never know what exactly was happening with politicians who loved the central Pretoria bars, famous for spies and honey traps.
He enjoyed his global experiences, such as sitting across the table from the likes of Alan Greenspan, chair of the US Federal Reserve in the late ’90s. Greenspan told him: “You look so young and innocent. Now that you are joining central banking, you need to look much older and wiser. That’s what central banking does to you. You can’t be looking young and innocent.”
I wonder what a Mboweni presidency would have looked like. Not that he needed that. But did we extract enough out of this colossal figure, who was always prepared to share his knowledge and wisdom, often to his own detriment?
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