Johannesburg — IT MUST be deliberate. Tito Mboweni , SA's vainest public official, turns up for an interview unshaven and wearing what appears to be a Nelson Mandela shirt. This is a huge departure for the South African Reserve Bank governor who is usually immaculately dressed in a suit and tie. Stunned, we ask if he is trying to copy Mandela. Mboweni retorts: "Of course Madiba would not wear this shirt."

Still, the Madiba-esque brown pattern, short sleeves and Maori- like decal on the yoke around the open V-neck, suggest a playfulness identified with Mandela, but not with the central bank governor. So, what message is he trying to send?

We are standing in the patio of Mboweni's official Pretoria residence, an apricot-brown villa set up against the hill. A precise, manicured garden cascades down, more in keeping with the Mboweni we know rather than the scruffy figure standing in front of us . Such a setting should lift him up to where the central banker feels he belongs. But no. Mboweni doesn't like the place. The avid trout fisherman uses the lawn to practise casting flies, but there is no view, he complains.

"My apartment in Killarney has a better view than this."

We spend the next few hours eating a lavish lunch in the dining room. It is an odd experience, a mix of formality and confessional intimacy as Tito Mboweni prepares for his next life after 10 years as governor of the Reserve Bank.

Although no public secret, it is a surprise to learn Mboweni is only 50. In an SA still finding its feet, younger people get opportunities usually available in other countries only towards the end of their careers. Mboweni has options aplenty and over lunch playfully hints at different ones in turn.

His first option is exile. Mboweni says logic dictates he should leave SA. Joining a board could mean a conflict of interest.

"In reality, there is nothing that moves in the South African economy on which the central bank doesn't impact. Therefore, you should leave the country."

He likes the idea of joining the paid speech circuit. Agencies have already been sending their credentials to his office. Still, he won't pronounce on monetary policy and he will not discuss inflation targeting. "What a pleasure!" he exclaims.

Mboweni expects to be criticised for whatever he does after a "cooling off" period of six to 12 months -- with full pay. But he will turn his skin, which can be crocodile-hide thick at times, to the chorus of disapproval.

"The issue is in our view, what is appropriate behaviour for a retired governor of the South African Reserve Bank," he says.

By this stage we have finished the starter of light salad and smoked turkey. Our lunch was due to take place at the Reserve Bank, but because the restaurant is being renovated, we come here. There is indeed building work at the Bank in Church Street, but there is something so disarmingly innocent about Mboweni that it would not surprise to hear the story was untrue. He comes across as a man made good wanting to show off his success. As his parents are deceased, perhaps we are the family he reveals his success to?

During the conversation, Mboweni chides the two reporters sitting across the dining table from him.

"There's one thing you haven't asked me yet: what is it that has been the inner driving force for my work? What is it that has been driving me?" Undeterred, the man from Limpopo answers himself .

"I'd like to let loose a bigger secret -- it's the fear of failure, that's number one! Number two is not to disappoint my family -- the Mbowenis are a very proud people, they won't stomach any failure on my part," he says. "The Mboweni family are like aristocracy: they are a proud, prim and proper people... Under no circumstances must I be found wanting."

The fiercely private Mboweni, who is surprisingly open about his family, also dwells on age and mortality. With the luxury of someone who does not need to worry, he frets over how he will maintain his lifestyle as a "pensioner". Mboweni has seen all manner of retirements go by. The chairman of the Bank's pension fund committee says that about seven years ago he introduced a rule to stop former employees from putting wives they married after retirement on to their pension scheme.

"We have these 70-year-old men getting married to 25-year- olds so that they can pass their pension on to this ... thing," he chuckles. " These pensioners were misbehaving. That's when I noticed that old retired men can behave very badly."

But what if the very rules this divorcee created end up making life difficult for him, if he found future happiness , we ask, fishing for details of his private life.

Mboweni doesn't take the bait, however, and stonewalls with his reply. Regulations must look after the "greater interests of society", he says.

Still, retirement sounds unlikely and despite the pensioner joke , it is clear the father of three boys has no intention of doing so. For a start, his memoirs, a work in progress, will only be published when he is 70. The governor is either supremely confident people will care about him in 19 years' time, or he plans to stay in public life.

But what could Mboweni do that would suitably tap his talents and indulge his idiosyncrasies? He used to say he wanted the post of high commissioner to the UK, but with former social development minister Zola Skweyiya recently given that role, it is out of the question. Mboweni suggests a posting to Berne -- his "favourite little city". His credibility as a central banker is established. He is credited with putting inflation targeting on firm footing, as well as having built up SA's foreign exchange reserves.

But he has an all-too-human side as well. The Mboweni who goes on at length about being a "gentleman" -- and drives a Jaguar, smokes cigars and has fly fishes to prove it -- has created an identity whose brittle core is easily exposed. This "gentlemanliness" can crack in public -- as seen in his childish restrictions on photographs of him at press conferences.

Despite his foibles, Mboweni has an integrity rare among SA's public figures. His support for unpopular causes ranges from ballet -- he is patron of the South African Ballet Theatre, which fights the backlash against ballet's perceived eurocentric nature -- to Zimbabwe. In the days of former president Thabo Mbeki 's denialist quiet diplomacy , Mboweni was one of a few public figures to buck the trend. "The wheels have come off in that country," he said in August 2001.

In May last year, Mboweni featured in a photo shoot in Business Day's Wanted magazine. Various personalities were shot modelling wardrobes -- Merrill Lynch SA CEO Clifford Sacks wore a Carducci shirt and tie and Ermenegildo Zegna suit, while Business Connexion CEO Ben Mophatlane wore a Woolworths shirt, Paul Smith tie and Viyella suit. T he caption on Mboweni's picture was sparse in detail, however. "Shirt, tie and suit all The Governor's own," it read.

He reflects on that shoot.

"It would have been inappropriate .... for the governor to be seen to be endorsing one or the other fashion house ... totally inappropriate."

Mboweni declines to be drawn on what will happen to the Bank's dress code when Gill Marcus, known for wearing kaftans, takes over. In fact, he does not respond to questions about her during our nearly three-hour-long lunch.

"I don't know why you are asking me these questions ."

The closest he gets to talk of his successor is of the system she inherits.

"Whoever becomes governor after me, when I decide to step down, will not change that culture ... there are some things you can't change in central banking. Always beware your enthusiasm to change Oxford because sooner or later Oxford will change you," he says.

Despite the reference, Mboweni did not study in the city of dreaming spires. He has an economics degree from the National University of Lesotho and a masters in developmental economics from the University of East Anglia, in Norwich, England

As the governor values appearance so highly, we are bursting to hear how he ended up this casually dressed in our interview. Mboweni says he stayed overnight at his own Johannesburg apartment after running late the previous evening. In the morning, he didn't have an "appropriate" shirt to match his suit.

"The way you dress says so much about how you prepare for work or other serious things ... it really does. And it says a lot about your character," he muses. "That is why I'm so embarrassed about the way I'm dressed today."

That explains why, even in this final interview, Mboweni stands firm on his no-photo rule.

We wonder, however, at the apparent absence of shaving utensils as well as a clean shirt in his apartment.

The main course arrives -- lamb shank flavoured with pepper, accompanied by pap. Vegetables are served separately.

Mboweni heaps the praise on his butler, who comes with the house and whose services he will lose upon retiring.

" When I retire I don't think I can afford a butler, but I will try ... a gentleman's house must have a butler," he says. "It's amazing the level of productivity which comes out of you if there is a butler in the house."

Despite loving the high life, Mboweni says he has working- class mates and may well turn to them for professional and spiritual accommodation when his term as governor is over. While labour minister, Mboweni says he struck up a relationship with the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) that remain s strong. The union has a political school at which he would like to teach economics. NUM, despite appearances, is more robust in its willingness to debate topics such as inflation targeting than its parent federation Cosatu, he says.

This relationship, Mboweni jokes, is one that has been of comfort when his vigorous defence of SA's liberal economic policies has drawn fire from those on the left of South African politics.

"When I get attacked by Cosatu I go crying to the mineworkers' union," he laughs.

So if Mboweni is maintaining a support network, could he be planning a return to politics? He gave up an active role in the African National Congress after becoming governor .

"After I leave the Bank, I will most gladly and actively attend party meetings. I'm looking forward to that," he says.

If he does go back to that world, the man who has "zillions" of ties -- "I do spend much time in the morning co- ordinating colours" -- is bound to be the best-dressed of the lot.

Mboweni loves public service, but regrets the way it destroys privacy. "The focus of the public is on you and your actions. I discovered that this freedom I spent so much time fighting for has its limitations."

Still, he's unlikely to give it up for the private sector. "Had I chosen to be in the private sector to make money I should have done that long ago and I'm quite certain, with all the Mboweni arrogance I can muster, that I would have made a lot of money."

He is keen to talk about his family origins. The first book written in his mother tongue of Tsonga was written by Swiss missionaries, he says.

"The largest concentration of literature about my people is not in SA but in a library in Lausanne owned by the Parish Missionary Society."

The missionaries tapped a religious vein that runs strong in the family line. "The uncle to my mother was the founder of the Apostolic Faith Mission church in my place, my mother was a fanatical Christian ... W hen you turned left you prayed, when you turned right you prayed, when you walked up the stairs you prayed, when you came downstairs you prayed, when you were eating you prayed when you washed the dishes, you prayed."

It suggests he resents that past, but no. Far from it. And it is on this topic that he dwells as the plates that held our fresh fruit desserts and cheese and biscuits, are cleared.

"When I've got time I go to church on Sundays."

Mboweni's favourite church is the Catholic chapel near his Limpopo farm, where the attention to ritual -- and the efficient use of time -- meet with his approval. "I like the ceremony. The priest comes wearing his robes. It's quite nice. At our church in Magoebaskloof... (the service) begins at 8.30 on Sunday morning. At quarter past nine it's completed with Holy Communion finished. But the chapel can only take 30 people, so if you are late you stand outside."

There, Mboweni declares, when not only his current job but all earthly jobs come to an end, he will finish his journey.

"When my days are over on this earth, I have asked the people who are going to manage my funeral to ask for me to lie in state in that chapel the night before the committal. That beautiful night."

Not even Mboweni can keep a straight face as he delivers that line.

Our lunch has lengthened as have the afternoon shadows, but Mboweni seems keen to keep going. As we walk out from the dining room to the front door, he leads us into his study and shows us portraits of both his parents -- his young-looking father who died in 1983 and his stern-looking mother. He shows his bookshelves. Among Karl Marx's Capital and Margaret Thatcher's The Downing Street Years lies a hardback copy of his first university economics text.

Which politician does he admire the most? The reply is telling: "All of them."

And perhaps this is the message: With Tito Mboweni you see what you get. We have seen a lot of him as central bank governor for the past 10 years. In that time, he has been more Maggie than Karl. But don't be lulled into thinking the other is not there.

He might just surprise you.