NATIONALISATION
HILARY JOFFE: How the economy is at stake in zombie Bank debate
It has been called the zombie debate. The call for the nationalisation of the Reserve Bank keeps being shot down, yet it keeps coming back again. The ANC has tasked its economic transformation committee to research the topic, after it was persuaded in March to withdraw the motion it had tabled in Parliament to nationalise the Bank. The party has promised to consult widely and to deal "sensitively" with the issue. What the ANC still hasn’t done, though, is make it clear what it hopes to achieve with a buyout of the private shareholders the Bank has had since it was created in 1921, making it one of just a handful of central banks that still have private shareholders. In its December resolution, the party said it was a "historical anomaly" that there were private shareholders in the Bank, which should be 100% state-owned. It said the government must develop a proposal for full ownership which "does not benefit private shareholder speculators".It didn’t say what difference full ownersh...
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