EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK
LUKANYO MNYANDA: Reserve Bank's Lesetja Kganyago is a bulwark and a lighthouse
Central bankers would seem to suffer the same fate wherever they are from. Listening to Reserve Bank governor Lesetja Kganyago’s comments after the monetary policy committee’s interest rates decision last week, one might well have been in Frankfurt, listening to his counterpart at the European Central Bank (ECB). Mario Draghi’s elevation to the top job at the ECB coincided with Europe’s growth and debt crisis hitting new depths, meaning he has spent most of his term fighting fires. In a desperate attempt to keep the economy afloat after Greece’s debt crisis threatened to engulf the whole region, the ECB took some extraordinary steps during his tenure. These included pushing interest rates below zero and implementing a quantitative easing programme that has seen the central bank spend well more than €2-trillion buying debt instruments in an effort to stimulate the economy. That was in line with his declaration in 2012 that he would do "whatever it takes" to save the euro when the wor...
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