In his prime, it was typical for fans of those teams in which French international footballer N’Golo Kanté played, including Chelsea, to quip that “70% of the Earth is covered by water, the rest by N’Golo Kanté”. Many opposing fans were often forced to agree grudgingly.

Kanté epitomised the type of footballer who could sniff out danger and react pre-emptively to make crucial interceptions or close spaces that could otherwise become pockets of threat.

In a society such as South Africa, where crime and corruption pose an ongoing threat to safety, service delivery, financial sustainability and, ultimately, democracy, media organisations with investigative capability and capacity have often been called upon to play that ‘every-blade-of-grass’ defensive midfielder role.

The media has been joined in this responsibility by a handful of other institutions, including the courts and, on the macroeconomic playing field, by the South African Reserve Bank (SARB).

Throughout the destructive years of State capture, the SARB was able to safeguard its independence, sometimes against the odds.

That’s not to argue that every decision it has made has been the correct one and should not be questioned; all bank decisions should most definitely be debated, scrutinised and even criticised.

Nevertheless, few would be able to credibly prove that its processes and decisions were based on any consideration other than its own analysis of the best information available at the time and what was in the interest of meeting its mandate and, by extension, the interests of South Africa.

As a result, the bank has been able to cultivate something that is a rare commodity among South African public institutions: credibility.

Such credibility is not automatic, and central bankers don’t always command it. What is clear, however, is that building it requires not only independence from political motives, but also the perception of such.

International Monetary Fund economic counsellor and director of the research department Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas recently unpacked the economic value of the credibility derived from the independence that central banks have promoted over the past 40 years.

The upshot is that central banks are now largely trusted to deliver price stability, because there is an expectation that there will be no interference with their ability to deploy the tools at their disposal to achieve that goal. If that expectation is eroded, there will be a “de-anchoring of inflation expectations”, leading to higher inflation expectations and, in turn, higher inflation, currency volatility, macroeconomic instability, and lower growth.

The SARB has been fortunate to operate on a playing field where governments around the world have recognised the value of bank independence even when their actions were not immediately supportive of the governing party’s economic agenda.

That model is now under genuine threat after the US launched a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve chairperson Jerome Powell. If the administration prevails, the independence of other banks could come under similar pressure, and many countries could lose a key central defensive midfielder.