By Loushe Jordaan Gilbert
Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) released data on Wednesday showing that July’s inflation figure is the lowest it has been in three years, since July 2021. Several product categories, such as food and non-alcoholic drinks, as well as transportation, showed lower yearly rates.
The drop in inflation from 5.1% in June to 4.6% in July has been enthusiastically observed by the South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU).
SAFTU’s National Spokesperson Trevor Shaku said the union is now calling on the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) to reduce the interest rates, which has been left unchanged at 8.25% for the 6th consecutive month.
“We call on them to reduce the interest rates in the September meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) because inflation has eased near the mid-point of the target range. The MPC argues that it is keeping the rates up because of high inflation. Now that inflation has consistently been well within the target range of 3 – 6%, the SARB has no justification to strangulate the economy by keeping the interest rates high,” he stressed.
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