Reading (and believing) some of our critics, you would think the SARB is obsessed with inflation – and little else. From a worldwide comparative perspective, South African inflation has become quite high. Back in 2005, we had lower inflation than 60% of all countries. More recently, in 2011, we were about in the middle – lower than half, higher than half.
In 2016, however, we had higher inflation than most other countries – 80% of them. This is not just because we had a drought and food prices were high.