PARLIAMENT – Finance Minister Tito Mboweni on Wednesday said that the reports that stated he would leave his post after the May elections were greatly exaggerated.
Briefing the media shortly before he tabled the 2019 budget at the Nation Assembly in Cape Town, Mboweni joked that he had made a deal with Deputy President David Mabuza that he would stay on should the ANC win the election.
"I am not abandoning you so soon," he said. "I'm not going not anywhere in a hurry, don't worry."
His commitment to staying in his portfolio came in a briefing where he openly disagreed with ANC policy preoccupations, including its manifesto call for amending the mandate of the National Reserve Bank.
With the state of Eskom and other pressing matters, he asked, "why to worry about the independence of the central bank?"
"The more independent it is the better."