Duncan Pieterse has been appointed as the new Director-General of the National Treasury. Unlike many government departments, the Treasury and the Finance Ministry are mostly focused on merit rather than the deployment of questionable cadres. The new DG will have his work cut out for him in the face of a barely growing economy that bodes ill for revenue collection and debt reduction.

Duncan Pieterse brings a decade of experience in the National Treasury to a job that is among the toughest in government. Currently the Deputy Director-General of Asset and Liability Management (ALM) - also a difficult position where he impressed - the Harvard PhD assumes the role at the beginning of September.

"I believe Duncan has more than enough experience, expertise and chutzpah to make a success of this new challenge," Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said in a statement.

"Chutzpah" suggests someone has the guts to do tough things, and one analyst who spoke to Business Maverick noted Pieterse's efforts to turn the ALM ship around before it hit an iceberg.

"He moved to ALM originally in part because of how weak it was under two previous leaders of the division, which had left it listless from 2014 to 2021. Duncan started turning it around capacity-wise, training and reorganising people, but it was not a complete task," the analyst said.

"But they still need a strong head of ALM, given the funding cliff-edge we are at. ALM has a problem. There are no obvious internal candidates to take over."

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