South Africa is staring at a possible downgrade in credit rating in November, if indications are to be believed. To avert that within the short time at its disposal may be a Herculean task but not impossible. Structural reforms may be, perhaps, the only window open to the country, which was one of the most industrialized country in Africa, but now slipped to the second position.
Rating agencies- three in number and Moody’s is the last of the three downgraded South African government debt at investment grade. But what awaits the country is a sub-investment grade, popularly qualified as junk status, the rock bottom to which a bond can slide.
South Africa faces domestic and international pressures. The World Bank recently cut the country’s growth forecast sharply. The government is alive to the problems and the implications of a sub-investment grade. There will be flight of capital from the debt market.
The central bank is taking structural reforms, particularly revamping its public utilities. A recent growth plan by Finance Minister Tito Mboweni is aimed to reform of state-owned entities such as energy near-monopoly Eskom Holdings, which are chronically sick. Eskom is a debt ridden power utility company which analysts view as crucial to the health of South Africa’s economy. It has begun a series of rolling blackouts across the country amid maintenance problems.
Will South Africa win the race against all odds. That is the question being asked at several places.
