Okonjo-Iweala attends South Africa’s economic council meeting

Nigeria’s former minister of finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, on Friday, attended South Africa’s presidential economic advisory council meeting in Tshwane, the northern metropolitan Gauteng Province of Pretoria.

Mrs Okonjo-Iweala, an international development expert, attended the presidential council meeting alongside South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, addressing issues on the country’s economy, according to a tweet she posted via her Twitter account on Saturday.

“With President Ramaphosa, members of cabinet, and members of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council in Pretoria discussing sources of growth for the South African economy and win-win economic interactions with the continent,” the tweet reads.

She had served two terms as Finance Minister of Nigeria (2003-2006, 2011-2015) under the leadership of President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Goodluck Jonathan respectively.

South Africa is currently facing its second recession in two years, as agriculture, transport and widespread power cuts are blamed for pushing the continent’s most industrialised country into economic decline, Reuters reported earlier in the year.

According to the report, the country’s economy shrank 1.4 per cent in the fourth quarter 2019, following a revised 0.8 per cent contraction in the third quarter, while its economy grew by just 0.2 per cent in 2019 and 0.8 per cent in 2018 respectively.