Cape Town - The rand weakened in late afternoon trade on Monday amid political uncertainty caused by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan's comments on the Tax commissioner.
"Political uncertainty caused by comments from Minister Gordhan that there is no equality between Sars commissioner Tom Moyane and a minister have caused the rand to run to 15.58 [to the dollar]", TreasuryOne said.
At 18:08 the rand was trading down 2.38% at 15.58 to the greenback.
In an apparent swipe at Moyane, Gordhan said that a cabinet minister could not be equated with the SA Revenue Service (Sars) commissioner.
READ MORE: Moyane not equal to a minister - Gordhan
"Often you guys get it wrong. Moyane is not a minister. He is the equivalent of the head of an administration," Gordhan told reporters in Johannesburg.
"There is no equality between Moyane and a minister."
Last month, Business Day newspaper reported that Gordhan had threatened to resign after he told President Jacob Zuma that he could no longer work with Moyane, who has purged people associated with Gordhan.
Furthermore oil losses have dragged commodity currencies down. The rand breached R15.50 to the dollar after trading in the upper R15.30's for most of the day.
AFP reported that world oil prices fell sharply on Monday after Iran reportedly announced over the weekend that it would only join an output freeze proposed by Saudi Arabia and Russia once its supply had reached pre-sanction levels of 4.0 mbpd.
Intermediate crude declined 4.1% to below $37 a barrel.