Tito Mboweni, South Africa's first Black central bank chief, dies at 65

Ntando Thukwana, Bloomberg News on Oct 12, 2024

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Tito Mboweni, who was the first Black governor of the South African Reserve Bank and was heralded by financial markets and business for keeping tight fiscal controls on the nation’s public spending, has died. He was 65.

The former governor died after a “short illness,” the Office of the Presidency said late Saturday.

Mboweni served as central bank governor between 1999 and 2009, and as finance minister from October 2018 to August 2021.

“We have lost a leader and compatriot who has served our nation as an activist, economic policy innovator and champion of labor rights,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said. “As governor and finance minister, he had a sharp focus on fiscal discipline and economic transformation.”

Mboweni was appointed finance minister by Ramaphosa during his first term as leader of the country, when the president pledged to combat corruption and rebuild confidence in an economy that was in the doldrums after nine years under former President Jacob Zuma.

Mboweni previously served as South Africa’s labor minister in the country’s first democratic cabinet after the end of white minority rule in 1994.

“Tito Mboweni distinguished himself in different strategic roles in the private sector and was a flag bearer in global forums for our economy and developing economies more broadly,” Ramaphosa said.

One of Mboweni’s major achievements at the central bank was building up the nation’s foreign-exchange reserves to almost $40 billion from less than $10 billion.

After his time at the reserve bank, Mboweni joined the private sector as an adviser in South Africa for Goldman Sachs Group Inc. He also served as chairman of AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. and sat on the boards of various other companies.

Mboweni was instrumental in the reserve bank’s adoption of inflation targeting and maintaining price stability, in a “fragile post-apartheid economy,” according to the ruling African National Congress. The central bank governor was a member of the party’s national executive council, its highest decision making body.

“His contributions in this space helped steer South Africa through economic turbulence and he was widely respected for this, both locally and internationally,” the ANC said. “Though his term was brief, he guided the country’s economic policy during a critical period of transition following the departure of his predecessor.”