An allAfrica.com report states that South Africa disagrees with rating agency Moody’s downgrade of SA financial institutions, according to finance minister, Pravin Gordhan.
“We disagree with the assessment. They are not giving us enough credit for managing our economy,” Gordhan said.
The minister’s criticism follows Moody’s Investors Service downgrading by one notch the senior debt and deposit ratings of the five SA banks: Standard Bank, Absa Bank, FirstRand Bank, Nedbank, and Investec Bank. The announcement was made last Wednesday.
Gordhan said rating agencies were shown up for their “inadequacies” during the global economic meltdown of 2008.
“We have an excellent credit record in South Africa, general government debt this year is 39% - well below the median of 44%. We are doing well compared to our peers,” he added.
He also said the rating agency had not read government's national budget, which for the first time reached R1.06-trillion.
The minister said the agency had demanded that countries manage their debt and that when growth did not happen, it then demanded growth. “You can't have both,” he added.
