Lesiba Mothata, chief economist at Investment Solutions, discusses how the country can get back onto a solid ratings footing as it heads into 2017
Lesiba Mothata is chief economist at Investment Solutions. BUSINESS DAY TV: As we’ve been reporting, S&P has cut SA’s local currency rating but it’s kept the all-important sovereign rating unchanged at just one notch above junk, and it’s warned that it wants to see results or it will downgrade the country. For a reaction on today’s announcement, I’m joined by Lesiba Mothata, chief economist at Investment Solutions. So, you just said that today is a day of celebration? LESIBA MOTHATA: I do think this moment needs to be celebrated, we need to pause and just applaud Team SA, which includes business, labour and the National Treasury and government broadly. It is a moment to be celebrated because if they had made a decision to downgrade on their foreign-currency rating, it would have meant that we’re junk, and I actually don’t think that SA is there yet. So this has been confirmed. BDTV: And it also takes seven years to climb out of junk. But some would say that we’re lucky because there...
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