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06 March 2020 | Story Valentino Ndaba | Photo Stephen Collett
Lesetja Kganyago, Governor of the South African Reserve Bank
Reserve Bank Governor, Lesetja Kganyago, presented a public lecture at the UFS on 4 March 2020.

With a 7% fiscal deficit on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) projected by the National Treasury for the 2020/21 financial year, it would not take long to arrive at a dangerous level of debt at the rate that South Africa is borrowing. Although the South African Reserve Bank Governor, Lesetja Kganyago, does not consider a debt to GDP rate of 60% a disaster, he did express his concern regarding the country’s fiscal deficits being over 6% of the GDP.

Governor Kganyago presented a public lecture at the University of the Free State (UFS) on 4 March 2020, focusing on how we should use macro-economic policy and its role in our economic growth problem.

Unsustainable policies 
South Africa’s fiscal situation is not about tight monetary policy. According to the Governor: “Weak growth is endogenous in our fiscal problems. We cannot keep doing what we are doing and hope that growth will recover and save us. Growth is low, in large part, because of unsustainable policy.”

Avoiding an impending crisis
To address the problem, as a policymaker with more than 20 years’ experience, the Governor suggested that the recommendations made by Minister Tito Mboweni be taken into consideration. “The Minister of Finance, Tito Mboweni, is a man who says things that are true even when they are unpopular. His message is that we have to reduce spending and he is right to put this at the centre of our macro-economic debate,” said Governor Kganyago.

The state needs a radical economic turnaround strategy which is able to diminish the risk of losing market access and being forced to ask the International Monetary Fund for help. Governor Kganyago is positive that such a reformative tactic would go beyond monetary policy and ensure that the interest bill ceases to claim more of South Africa’s scarce resources. 

News Archive

Five times unbeaten
2011-12-14

 
The UFS tennis team won the goldprize at this year's USSA-tournament.

For the fifth time in a row, the tennis team of the University of the Free State (UFS) won gold at the tennis championships of the University Sports South Africa (USSA) tournament. The tournament was held from Monday 5 December 2011 till Friday 9 December 2011 at the University of Stellenbosch, where 21 teams from 18 tertiary academic institutions participated.

After the USSA tournament, four Kovsie players were included in a training group to take part in training camps, tournaments and trials in preparation of the Confederation of University and College Sport Association (CUCSA) Games to be held in Namibia in 2012. These four students, namely Duke Monro, Christi Potgieter, Elizna Barnard and Este Portgieter, were also selected for the training group to the World Student Games (Universiade) in Russia in 2013.

In 2010, six of the players from the UFS were included in the South African team to the CUCSA Games in Botswana. This year the UFS produced three players to the Universiade in China.

The coach and team manager of the Kovsie team, Marnus Kleinhans and Janine de Kock, were also appointed coach and manager of the South African Student team to the CUCSA and World Student Games for the next two years.

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