“We don’t have the full understanding of what the implications are at this stage.
“What we will be making here are preliminary comments on what should be done‚” said the chairperson of the party’s sub committee on economic transformation‚ Enoch Godongwana‚ while briefing the media on the ANC’s document on economic transformation in Luthuli House on Sunday.
Godongwana said the country needs to “pull together” to overcome its economic problems.
“A deterioration in South Africa’s credit rating will have a major negative impact on our country’s ability to raise debt funding to fund its development programmes‚” Godongwana said.
He said the ANC will take “various” actions to deal with the issue of the credit rating downgrade.
These include; a need for renewed focus on growth-enhancing policies required to reverse the country’s economic “fortunes” and “to stabilise the outlook for governance in our state institutions‚ ensure that SOEs are financially sustainable and address policy uncertainties” and convening a round table with all key stakeholders to discuss substantial issues affecting the economy‚ particularly aimed at achieving the objective lf lifting levels to 30% of GDP”.
Ratings agencies Fitch and S&P Global Ratings have downgraded South Africa’s sovereign credit rating to sub-investment grade or junk status.
Nomahlubi Jordaan
TimesLIVE