“Moody’s continues to give the Ramaphosa government the benefit of the doubt,” said Jakob Christensen, a Copenhagen-based economist at Danske Bank A/S. “A critical part of the reform agenda is Eskom and here Moody’s will await the government plan for the company. If the plan is not forthcoming or is found insufficient, I think the rating agency will pull the trigger and downgrade South Africa to junk.”
Moody’s is the only major company to rate South Africa’s debt at investment grade after S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings cut their assessments to junk in 2017.