Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba’s interaction with investors and the global finance community has shown that the government would stick to the course of fiscal discipline and consolidation charted by his predecessor, the cabinet said on Friday.
“These engagements underscored that government’s policy orientation towards prudent fiscal discipline and stringent fiscal consolidation as highlighted in the 2017 National Budget will remain unchanged,” the cabinet said this week after its first meeting since the reshuffle at the end of March in which Pravin Gordhan was fired.
Communications Minister Ayanda Dlodlo said Gigaba did not attend the cabinet meeting, and that no reference was made to the sweeping reshuffle, except to welcome new ministers.
The cabinet statement did not mention the downgrading of South Africa’s credit rating to junk by S&P Global and Fitch in the week that followed the reshuffle, but welcomed the country’s return to the AT Kearney’s 2017 Foreign Direct Investment Confidence report, landing at number 25 on the index.
Dlodlo said she believed the cabinet would discuss the downgrade at its next meeting.
“Cabinet did not discuss the issue of ratings. The minister of finance was not in cabinet and I think issues around the financial outlook will be discussed at the next Cabinet when he is in attendance,” Dlodlo said.
The cabinet noted that Gigaba attended meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary fund in the United States, and also engaged with the Nedlac special executive committee chaired by Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.