Cape Town – National Treasury warned that the Moody’s rating downgrade with a negative outlook “indicates that the risk of further downgrades is still there”.

Treasury issued a late-night statement on Friday, after Moody’s announced that it had downgraded the country’s long-term foreign and local currency debt ratings one notch from Baa2 to Baa3, and gave it a negative outlook.

Earlier this year, following the Cabinet reshuffle where President Jacob Zuma replaced former Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan with former Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba, the ratings agency placed South Africa on review for a downgrade. At the time both Fitch and S&P downgraded the foreign currency rating to junk status.