‘Policy won’t change if Cyril quits’

● Finance minister Enoch Godongwana said on Friday he expects President Cyril Ramaphosa to remain in the job, but economic policy wouldn’t be affected if he quit.

Ramaphosa is seen as the driving force behind South Africa’s bid to liberalise its power sector and open the economy to private investment, but Godongwana emphasised that policy is determined by the ANC and isn’t tied to any individual.

“Any president is not going to pursue individualistic polices outside the framework of the party,” Godongwana said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. Economic measures announced in the February budget will follow on from the budget update in October, he said.

Local markets were roiled this week after an advisory panel established by parliament found grounds for lawmakers to consider impeaching Ramaphosa over the Phala Phala saga.

The day after the findings were released, the rand posted its worst one-day loss since May, while the government’s borrowing costs surged the most since 2015. The price of South African five-year credit default swaps climbed by the most since March 2020, indicating investor nervousness about political instability.

Still, those securities have now clawed back some ground.

South Africa is no stranger to political turmoil, from the fraught years of the transition to democracy to more recent events such as state capture and Jacob Zuma’s departure under a cloud.

“We are used to this kind of disruption and we have always found ways of managing it,” Godongwana said. “It’s noisy, it is our nation.”

The finance chief said he wants Ramaphosa to win a second term as ANC leader at its electoral conference later this month and that he only sees a 10% chance that the president will resign. He added that he would in principle be willing to

continue to serve in his position under a new leader.

Godongwana reiterated earlier comments by ANC chair Gwede Mantashe that Ramaphosa is an asset to the ANC.

“He is more popular than the party,” he said.

Colin Coleman, the former head of Goldman Sachs for Southern Africa, expressed concern that South Africa’s focus on anticorruption initiatives may waver, even if economic policy is maintained.

“I don’t worry that the policy of the ruling party is going to change,” he said. “Corruption has been one of the main issues that the president has been trying to tackle and without him there is obviously a question mark over whether that anti-corruption campaign will continue.”