Rand continues to slip as Pravin Gordhan prepares to take centre stage
The rand continued its backward trend on Tuesday afternoon ahead of Wednesday’s budget speech in Parliament, by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan. Gordhan is expected to announce fiscal contraction measures, namely more taxes and lower government expenditure, in an attempt to reduce SA’s budget deficit. The Treasury said earlier this week that it expected the current shortfall to be 3.1%, and expected this to decrease slightly over the next two years. The announcement comes amid growing speculation that President Jacob Zuma is preparing to oust Gordhan, in a suspected Cabinet reshuffle, with the recent nomination of former Eskom CEO Brian Molefe to Parliament, and reports of numerous calls by Zuma loyalists within the ANC for the removal of Gordhan. Gordhan said earlier that he "is not indispensable". At 3.47pm the rand was at R13.1511 to the dollar from Tuesday’s R13.0452. The rand traded at R13.8563 against the euro from R13.8441 and was at R16.3321 against the pound from R16.2614 p...
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