JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC) has not decided to expand the central bank’s mandate, the head of the party’s economic transformation committee told Reuters, rebutting comments by another senior party official which hurt the rand.

ANC Secretary General Ace Magashule told a news conference earlier on Tuesday that the party’s executive had “agreed to expand the mandate of the South African Reserve Bank beyond price stability to include growth and employment.”

But senior ANC economic official Enoch Godongwana said there was “no decision” to expand the bank’s mandate.

Magashule’s statement that the ANC executive also wanted to set up a team to explore the possibility of quantitative easing was also inaccurate, Godongwana said.

Reporting by Alexander Winning, Editing by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo, William Maclean