Tito Mboweni was one of the good guys

The typical Western movie starts off with a town that is suffering injustice at the hands of a gang of criminals who spare no-one: women, children, the elderly and frail suffer at the hands of lawless criminals and have no-one to turn to.

Men who should be protecting their loved ones are slapped around and humiliated.

Until a lone, nomadic, wandering man comes to town.

And this is the good guy who saves the town and everyone. The good guy in a Stetson hat.

Tito Mboweni, although an eccentric dresser in retirement, did not wear a Stetson.

But he was a good guy who responded when his country called.

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South Africa’s trajectory post-democracy has been a descent from blindingly dizzy good vibes into an abyss of despair laced with unemployment, crime and infrastructural destruction.

As a result, it became almost impossible to spot the good guys.

Especially those that were within the ANC of Nelson Mandela that largely brought the country those ’90s good vibes in the first place. And then took them away.

The country’s first black governor of the South African Reserve Bank (Sarb) was one of the few who stood out as a good guy. And he never changed until his death at the weekend.

Mboweni’s star shone so brightly that he even charmed the world money markets, who responded by choosing him the best central bank governor in the world in 2001.

But it did not start out shining that brightly.

When he was first chosen to have his signature replace that of Chris Stals on the country’s currency, the ever-volatile and change-averse rand went down by a margin of more than 5%.

Mboweni had to knuckle down and show the doubting Thomases that he knew what he was doing.

He did something almost impossible to do in the ANC.

Although much of his tenure as Reserve Bank governor was during former president Thabo Mbeki’s tenure, he never fully ingratiated himself with any particular faction of the then ruling party.

He just remained one of the good guys.

That is why in death he is mourned by the whole ANC, not just factions.

A Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is just as much in mourning as a Trevor Manuel and a Cyril Ramaphosa.

Mboweni was not immortalised by Mandela selecting him to be the youngest (alongside Sydney Mufamadi) member of South Africa’s first democratic Cabinet.

He immortalised himself through his work as minister of labour.

The Basic Conditions of Employment Act, which married the world of capitalistic multinationals and socialist trade unions, has become such a part of this country’s economic landscape that hardly anyone remembers who pioneered that piece of legislation.

Like the good guy in Western movies, the “Duke of the Duchy Magoebaskloof” never stopped long enough to pat himself on the back.

He was too busy being the good guy.

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When the ugly state capture period cast its dark shadow over the country, Mboweni never shied away from speaking his truth to power.

Even though he had officially retired from active politics in the second half of state capture, he still threw jabs from the sidelines.

So much so that when President Cyril Ramaphosa needed a unifying voice as minister of finance post-state capture, he hauled a reluctant Mboweni out of retirement to stabilise the markets.

As the Presidency has said: “He conducted himself with rigour while maintaining the expert touch…”

If ever there was a man who “walked with kings and did not lose his common touch,” governor Tito Titus Mboweni was that man – a good guy till the end.