10/12/2015
With the replacement of Nene causing the Rand to hit all time lows against the Dollar, the outlook for improvement of our Debt to GDP % looks rather bleak (this was already raised in Feb 2015 article by Alec Hogg ). The recent downgrade of SA to one level above junk, means SA could face significant outflows of foreign capital and increased financing costs. All of this makes it much harder for the government to pay off their debt, which means they are likely to require more cash (most likely from taxpayers) to fund the gap.
Investing in assets with less exposure to the ZAR fluctuations may assist you in reducing your exposure to the Rand fluctuations. This has caused SA investors to take money out of the country at the fastest pace ever (http://www.iol.co.za/business/news/the-race-to-move-assets-out-of-sa-1.1957326 #.Vmk7ANJPqM8).
In the Budget Press Conference I asked Nene how "hard" the 44% projection is - because in 2012 his predecessor Pravin Gordhan put the peak, in 2015, at 38%.