Mboweni Discusses South Africa Response in Private Goldman Call
S. Africa’s Mboweni to Hold Private Call for Goldman Clients
South African Finance Minister Tito Mboweni and a senior National Treasury official spoke about the country’s economic response to fallout from the coronavirus outbreak in a private call with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. clients.
Roy Havemann, the Treasury’s chief director of financial markets and stability, spoke on the call along with Mboweni, a person who listened to the call said. The government officials spoke about matters including a program to guarantee bank loans and the Land Bank, a state company that defaulted on some of its loans this week.
Joseph Stein, a spokesman for Goldman, confirmed the event. The South African Treasury referred queries to Goldman. Mboweni, a former South African central bank governor, has previously worked as an adviser to the investment bank.
“The moment you create exclusivity around the functions of the finance minister” it becomes problematic, said Piet Naude, the director of the University of Stellenbosch Business School, whose area of expertise is listed as ethics and politics. “The fact that he has a previous relationship with them makes it more sensitive.”
The call was due to be moderated by Kunal Shah, Goldman’s head of global currency trading and emerging markets trading in Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Andrew Matheny, an economist for the bank, according to invite sent to clients seen by Bloomberg.
Before the Goldman call Mboweni spoke to the media in a separate online briefing. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa earlier this week announced a 500 billion rand ($26 billion) program to mitigate the effect of the coronavirus outbreak on the economy and Mboweni answered some questions on that.
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