African National Congress (ANC) chairperson Gwede Mantashe says rating agencies are not political agencies. He has reacted to Standard & Poor’s revised outlook for South Africa from stable to negative.
S&P also touched on the political situation in South Africa in its statement saying the factional disagreements within the ruling ANC threaten the reform momentum crucial for kick-starting growth.
Mantashe says the rating agency took a risk to move into the political space and they must only assess the work that is being done to improve the economy.
“The infighting or the no infighting is a very mischievous analysis. The economy is not growing and we are aware of that and that is why we are working on it hard. We are hoping when they release the results for the 3rd Quarter in December, it will show some improvement in the performance of the economy and we can build from that. And in our discussion, you don’t just look at overall performance and go deeper as a country and ensure that sector by sector is assessed to ensure that every sector performs. If all the individual sectors do well, the economy will do well.”
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