Illustrative image: President Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed his Presidential Economic Advisory Council. | President Cyril Ramaphosa. (Photo: Gallo Images / Brenton Geach) | LEFT FROM TOP: Prof Imraan Valodia, Prof Alan Hirsch, Dr Renosi Mokate, Prof Haroon Bhorat, Prof Esther Duflo, Dr Antonio Andreoni, Dr Vera Songwe, Ms Mamokete Lijane, Mr Wandile Sihlobo. | RIGHT FROM TOP: Dr Kenneth Creamer, Isaah Mhlanga, Kuben Naidoo, Prof Mariana Mazzucato, Zeph Nhleko, Prof Ingrid Woolard, Trudi Makhaya, Prof Vusi Gumede, Prof Dani Rodrik, Prof Fiona Tregenna. (Photos: Sourced) President Cyril Ramaphosa will bolster the potential of his G20 presidency with a 19-member team of top economic advisers.
Appointed to his Presidential Economic Advisory Council, the 19 members, drawn from business and the global academies, show a bias towards employment-linked growth strategies.
This is a good thing in a country with the highest unemployment rate in the G20. Ramaphosa chairs the council, with Dr Renosi Mokate as his deputy. Mokate has previously held the roles of chairperson of the Government Employees' Pension Fund and deputy Reserve Bank governor, among many other leading roles.
Ramaphosa has looked around the world for leading thinkers. Prof Esther Duflo won the 2019 Nobel Prize (with Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer), and Prof Mariana Mazzucato is an exciting thinker on innovation in the state as a driver of growth. She also chairs the WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All – her advice on what SA does with the contested National Health Insurance initiative will be seriously taken on board.
Dr Vera Songwe is a former UN Under Secretary-General and executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa. Prof Dani Rodrik is an SA favourite for his work on industrial policy-driven growth as a vector for better employment. (It has yet to work, but Ramaphosa and his Cabinet remain adherents to the model.)
Dr Antonio Andreoni will be an excellent sounding board on the headway South Africa is finally making towards energy transition.
Another former Reserve Bank deputy governor, Kuben Naidoo, has been drafted on to the Council, as have chief economists Zeph Nhleko (Development Bank), Wandile Sihlobo (Agricultural Business Chamber and a leading thinker on land reform) and Isaah Mhlanga (RMB).
Mamokete Lijane, who chairs the influential Economic Research SA think-tank, is also a global markets strategist at Standard Bank. Trudi Makhaya, who was Ramaphosa’s economic adviser, is back in a different role.
Dr Kenneth Creamer is a trusted government adviser, as are Haroon Bhorat, Vusi Gumede and Alan Hirsch (with a welcome specialisation in public administration). Prof Fiona Tregenna, Prof Imraan Valodia, and Prof Ingrid Woolard are all well-known experts in addressing the country’s dilemmas with inequality and structural unemployment.
Read more: After the Bell: The Presidential Economic Advisory Council is a good idea, but inadequate
It’s an exciting and significant council, but its impact, especially in South Africa’s year to host the G20, will depend on whether its advice is taken seriously and implemented.
Ramaphosa has added new members and retained many existing ones from a previous council. DM