National

‘Tweeto’ Mboweni rattles the rand

A series of puzzling tweets from finance minister Tito Mboweni late on Thursday night appeared to hasten the rand's slide on Friday

09 November 2018 - 13:26 Robert Laing
Tito Mboweni. Picture: ESA ALEXANDER
Tito Mboweni. Picture: ESA ALEXANDER

Finance minister Tito Mboweni declared war on someone via Twitter late on Thursday night.

He may have joined US President Donald Trump in declaring war on the media, or he may have joined the media in its war on Trump. His cryptic tweets are open to many different interpretations.

"I like fighting, just point out who we [are] fighting against," said one of Mboweni's twitter followers, Tony Yengeni.

Some of the comments on Mboweni's posts blamed the new finance minister for the rand's woes in the early hours of Friday morning. The resurgent dollar, following hawkish comments by the US Federal Reserve Bank on Thursday evening, made most currencies slide, but the rand has fared worse than most.

The rand jumped with Tito Mboweni's late night tweets
Image: Iress

Various commentators wondered if Mboweni's account had been hacked, and everyone appeared puzzled by what the finance minister was trying to communicate.

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laingr@businesslive.co.za

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Published by Tiso Blackstar and distributed with the Financial Mail on the last Thursday of every month except December and January.