JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa’s Finance Minister Tito Mboweni said on Wednesday that “nobody was talking about changing the mandate of the Reserve Bank”, after a public spat between senior officials about the focus of the central bank.

“I don’t understand why the obsession about the central bank. … That mandate is very clearly articulated in the Constitution,” Mboweni said.

“Why are we saying things we know are going to destabilise the market?”