Weakening rand hurting South African foreign affairs

02 September 2015 - 17:29 By RDM News Wire

An additional R750 million is being requested by the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) as the rand‚ along with other commodity and emerging-market currencies‚ is reeling as markets remain unsure of the trajectory of global growth‚ with China’s economy showing signs of a slowdown. The Portfolio Committee on International Relations and Cooperation in parliament said in a statement it was "committed to supporting" the request from Dirco during the mid-term budget process.Chairperson of the Committee‚ Bheki Radebe‚ said the Committee acknowledged the challenge posed by a depreciating rand on the departmental budget.“The Committee supports additional funds for Dirco to mitigate risks associated with the rand’s depreciation on the department’s budget. It is important that Dirco’s programmes are not stalled on account of currency fluctuation‚” said Radebe.“Parliament needs to ensure that the important programmes and projects of the department abroad are not compromised. But the Committee will in the process of asking for more funding‚ emphasise that Dirco’s resources are used sparingly‚” he said.The department highlighted the depreciating rand as its main budget challenge during a briefing to the Committee on first quarter expenditure. It revealed that currency fluctuation challenge was budgeted at R13 per dollar this year but the rand has since depreciated beyond that. The department indicated that the matter had been raised with the National Treasury."Mr Radebe urged all Members of the Committee to support Dirco’s request for an additional R750 million in the mid-term budget process‚" the statement read.The rand was today trading at around R13.49 to the dollar‚ after breaching R14 to the dollar last week...

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