JOHANNESBURG will avoid the international debt market, which is treating borrowers as if the nation’s credit rating has already been cut to junk, said Rabelani Dagada, the city council’s new finance chief.SA is at risk of losing its investment-level credit status as S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings review their assessments in December. Both kept their ratings at one level above junk in June, and S&P kept the negative outlook, and said the government should take decisive measures to bolster economic growth, quell policy uncertainty and end political turmoil to avoid a future downgrade."The bond market is not favourable because the debt market is already treating SA as if we have been downgraded," Dagada said in an interview on Friday. The city would borrow locally because "it’s cheaper", he said.The Johannesburg council planned to raise R2.5bn in the fiscal year to end-June 2017 through the state-owned Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), which would help to fund infrastru...
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