Cape Town - The downgrade of South Africa's credit rating by international rating agencies Fitch and S&P Global provides a clear signal that the country is going to have to pull together like never before to overcome its economic problems, the ANC said on Sunday.
"A credit rating, being a measure of how likely the country will be able to repay its loans in full, is not an unimportant indicator of the state of the economy," ANC national executive committee sub-committee on economic transformation chairperson Enoch Godongwana said in a statement on a discussion document for the ANC's upcoming 4th national policy conference.
A deterioration in South Africa's credit rating would also have a major negative impact on the country's ability to raise debt funding to fund its development programmes, he said. "This is particularly critical given the low levels of domestic savings.
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"Achieving an investment grade status was one of the greatest successes of the ANC government after we took over a fully junk status in 1994.
"The ANC needs to mobilise collective action by all South Africans to bring the country back to investment grade."