Tito Mboweni was a pioneer who gave meaning to democracy in South Africa

There is general acceptance that the old South Africa let down the majority of citizens and the new South Africa has not fixed it. It is abundantly clear that politicians are not working for us but for each other.

It bears repeating that 30 years into democracy, the country has been broken down and needs rebuilding, replanning, repurposing and reimagining.

One of those at the forefront of this rebuilding, replanning, repurposing and reimagining was Tito Mboweni, who served as governor of the South African Reserve Bank and as minister of labour and of finance.

Mboweni was a true pioneer. He was a government employee for 30 years. Before that, he was a student activist in exile at the National University of Lesotho.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Mboweni's sudden death highlights an enormous contribution and a sad loss

Upon his return home, he became deputy head of the ANC Economic Desk. This was to prove critical when he served on the Economic Committee as one of the architects of South Africa’s modern economic policy framework.

He and former president Thabo Mbeki (political leadership), former finance minister Trevor Manuel (systematic reduction of the fiscal deficit) and the team led by Joel Netshitenzhe were instrumental in cementing the country’s monetary and fiscal policy regime and led the arguments for the independence of the SA Reserve Bank during the constitutional negotiations.

Then President Nelson Mandela appointed him as the first minister of labour in the democratic South Africa, a post he occupied from 1994 to 1999.

Mboweni and his colleagues blessed the country with the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, the Employment Equity Act and the National Economic Development and Labour Council, all of which gave labour the rights that were long denied by apartheid.

He was integral in supporting then Deputy President Thabo Mbeki in the creation of Business Unity South Africa from 127 business organisations.

The real resonance was being invited to his inauguration and seeing his signature on rand notes as the first black governor of the SA Reserve Bank, a post he occupied from 1999 to 2009.

He and his team introduced inflation targeting as a formal tool to tame rampant inflation, held press conferences immediately after the Monetary Policy Committee had concluded their deliberations and actually took questions.

In 2018, Mboweni was appointed as minister of finance. He institutionalised fiscal discipline and economic transformation, was firm on how the public purse should be used and was vocal that the government could not continue to bail out poorly led state-owned enterprises.

We thank Mboweni for many things, especially for being intentional that South Africa is where “I want to die and be buried”, for the courage to solve rather than cushion problems, for asking uncomfortable questions, for emphasising the collective over the individual, for giving democracy meaning and for pushing us to sit in the discomfort of the moment because there is always a seed of righteousness within it. DM