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Johannesburg - The appointment of Gill Marcus as the first female SA Reserve Bank governor has kicked up a storm over transformation, especially in the financial sector.
The most vociferous debate was among observers who believed her appointment suggested that the ANC was turning against transformation - one of its core policies.
And while Marcus has to manage this storm when she takes over from Tito Mboweni in November, she has more pressing issues to attend to. There is the matter of a global financial crisis and a South African economy in recession.
"The appointments in the core resource envelope of the country suggest that the ANC does not have confidence in the blacks of African descent," said Duma Gqubule, director of advisory firm Kio.
He is one of the few transformation advocates prepared to comment on the record. Gqubule said the appointments suggested the ANC was more concerned about the financial markets that tended to unjustifiably associate competence with non-African blacks.
He said the appointment of ministers Trevor Manuel (National Planning Commission), Pravin Gordhan (finance), Ibrahim Patel (economic development), Rob Davies (trade and industry), Barbara Hogan (public enterprises) and Marcus reinforced the perception.
But ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe defended his party's position.
"The ANC has always been a non-racial organisation that fights to eliminate gender, race and class contradictions. Some people want to unbundle black to mean African. They want to nullify the traditional definition of black," he said.
Mantashe said nobody had raised such concerns with the ANC
"What we have done is transformation in action. We are actively fighting gender and women oppression," he said.
Black Management Forum president Jimmy Manyi was guarded in his reaction to the appointment.
"The government needs to be careful not to reverse the gains it has made in relation to employment equity," he said.
"There is no problem if the appointments are in line with the government's plan. It is difficult to oppose appointments only on ideological differences."
Outside of the debate, Marcus has a job on her hands. She only has until November to familiarise herself with the workings of the bank, which has changed since she left it in 2004.
Lumkile Mondi, the chief economist at the Industrial Development Corporation, said: "She will need to understand the transformation agenda below the deputies. Marcus will have to ensure transformation happens at lower levels of the bank."
Mondi said Marcus would also need to review the bank's supervision department in the wake of the global crisis.
"The credit crunch happened because the regulators did not understand what the banks were doing. Marcus will need to ensure that the department remains vigilant," he said.
Mondi said Marcus may need to broaden the composition of the Monetary Policy Committee, which determined interest rates, to include representatives of labour, business and civil society. The British central bank?s committee has a similar composition.
Business Leadership SA chief executive Michael Spicer said the markets had warmed up to National Treasury Minister Pravin Gordhan and Marcus.
"Marcus has to balance the need over the long term to keep inflation down. She has to keep interest rates also as low as possible while not choking off the flows of funding that come in and are necessary to balance our books," he said.
"The difficult thing is, inflation has been a little sticky. It's meant to have come down into the inflation target bracket but has been stubbornly sticking at 8%."
- City Press
