Mboweni ready for last meeting
October 20, 2009
By Ethel Hazelurst
Tito Mboweni will chair his last meeting of the Reserve Bank's monetary policy committee (MPC) starting tomorrow.
The governor has served two terms and is due to retire next month. The following MPC meeting, on the of November 16 and 17, will be chaired by his successor, Gill Marcus, who takes over on November 9.
Mboweni, the labour minister in the cabinet of former president Nelson Mandela, succeeded retiring governor Chris Stals as head of the central bank in August 1999.
Mboweni's tenure has been controversial and he has come under regular attack, particularly from union federation Cosatu, for his firm stand on monetary policy. Inflation targeting was introduced on his watch by the government and his brief was to keep consumer price rises within the 3 percent to 6 percent target range.
He started hiking the bank's official repo rate in June 2006 as inflation gathered force. Despite the series of rate rises from a low of 7 percent, inflation breached the ceiling in March 2007, peaked at 13.7 percent in August last year and fell back to 6.4 percent by this August. The repo rate peaked at 12 percent in June last year and remained at that level till the cycle reversed in December last year. - Ethel Hazelhurst
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