Senior ANC MP Calls For Widening SARB Mandate Beyond Inflation Targeting

SABC News reports that ANC MP and chairperson of the Standing Committee on Appropriations Sfiso Buthelezi suggested that "one of the solutions to address high unemployment levels as well low economic growth is to expand the mandate of the South African Reserve Bank."

• According to the official, the "Reserve Bank’s primary mandate as outlined in the Constitution, of inflation targeting, contradicts government’s efforts to solve challenges of growing the economy."
• @With interest rates that stifles and chokes investment and also chokes economic growth and employment opportunities, government expenditure again is choked (...) We are arguing that to be preoccupied with inflation rate only is problematic, it runs against what the government is trying to do."
• Various ANC officials had previously floated the idea of expanding the SARB's mandate, but the central bank has been sceptical, with Governor Lesetja Kganyago suggesting that the SARB lacks the tools needed to resolve South Africa's structural problems.