By Alec Hogg

Had a sobering interview yesterday with the City of London’s go-to man on all things South African. Nomura’s Peter Attard Montalto has an incredibly well-informed contact base, and his research reports distributed to the West’s biggest money managers have been very much on the money during the recent turbulent period.

Based on the view that even depression-triggering information is worth absorbing in the cause of being better to be informed, I’d strongly recommend listening to the interview which is on Biznews this morning. Among the lowlights is how Montalto adjusted his GDP forecasts in the wake of Gordhan’s firing – dropping this year’s from 1.1% to 0.2% and 2018’s from 1.7% to 0.7%.

With SA’s GDP around $350bn, that economic growth reduction translates into a loss of $7bn over the two years – near as dammit to R100bn. To this, we can add the PGxit-inspired drop of R132bn in the market cap of JSE-listed banks and property companies. These interest rate stocks are the most vulnerable to political machinations.

Overlay the fall in bond prices and the decline in the value of global assets owned by SA taxpayers and it’s clear the cost of Zuma’s bizarre decision tops a quarter trillion rand. After Nenegate we wondered how South Africa could afford to have an economic novice running things. Even more so now.