Finance Minister Gigaba warns of tough times

The new minister of finance, Malusi Gigaba has asked people to be prepared for tough times as the ANC had reached a “difficult stage of economic freedom”.

Speaking at an ANC cadre forum at Sibusisiwe Hall in Mandeni on Sunday, the former resident of Mandeni’s ward 10 (Emachibini) said members of the ANC should go out and inform residents that the struggle had reached a tough stage.

“We should tell the people that we have reached a stage were we need to make sacrifices because we need to take decisions that will affect people’s pockets. The economic struggle is much harder than the political struggle and we need to be brave in order to win,” said Gigaba.

He said the ANC had to accelerate the economy and land transformation process, to ensure that both were shared by all the people of the country.

If the methods being used to get the land and economy back to the people were not working, they had to be changed.

Gigaba was confident that the country would recover and move out of junk status.

“Yes, we must worry about junk status. However, it is not the end of the world. We will get out of junk status because investors still trust our economy,” he claimed.

South Africa was recently downgraded to junk status by two rating agencies after the cabinet reshuffle by President Jacob Zuma. Zuma sacked Pravin Gordhan as minister of finance and replaced him with Gigaba.

A downgrade to junk status means the rating agencies do not ‘trust our economy’ because they believe it unlikely that debt in foreign currency will be repaid.

If investors leave, taking their money with them, the domino effect for the man on the street is that the rand may continue to weaken, resulting in rising interest rates and higher fuel and food prices.

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