The South African Reserve Bank looks set to hike rates for a 10th consecutive time when its Monetary Policy Committee wraps up its three-day meeting this week on Thursday. The rand's blowout since its last meeting in March and US rate hikes are forcing its hand.

The big question around the latest Monetary Policy Committee (MPS) meeting, which begins its three-day deliberations on Tuesday, is not if it will raise rates again. The burning question is by how much.

A Reuters poll of 20 economists found that 11 forecast a 25 basis point hike while five expect one of 50 basis points (bps). Four see no change, but there are frankly no grounds for that outlook, beyond unwarranted optimism.

A 25bps rise would take the SA Reserve Bank's (Sarb's) key repo rate to 8.00% and the prime lending rate for consumers to 11.5%. It would also be the MPC's 10th consecutive increase since November 2021 and would bring the cumulative rise since then to 450bps.

But 50bps is clearly on the cards -- the Sarb hiked by that amount in March, taking many economists by surprise.

"We expect the MPC to hike rates by 50 basis points... CPI [consumer price index] is proving to be sticky, while the rand has depreciated notably," said Investec economist Lara Hodes in a commentary.

CPI in March was running at 7.1%, while food inflation raced to a 14-year high of 14.4%. CPI has been above the Sarb's 3% to...