Nowadays in South Africa, it is strange to unearth anybody agreeing with the world’s three rating agencies – Moody’s, Fitch and Standard & Poor’s (S&P) – about any economic choice they make about respective countries.

A couple of weeks back, the world’s rating agencies downgraded South Africa’s fast-growing low cost bank, Capitec and the four top four banks, Absa, Standard Bank, First Rand and Nedbank. This prompted a huge outcry in South Africa from the citizens, politicians and the banks themselves.

This was in view of the fact that these banks have been doing very well in addition to withstanding the global economic meltdown in 2007 and beyond.

It is interesting to know the amount of outcry when South Africa is, as many experts in South Africa believe, downgraded to junk status in the next couple of weeks because its economy is underperforming in contrast to what many have believed all along.

The outgoing central bank governor, Gil Marcus, this week said South Africa’s economy would only grow 1.5 percent this year. This was far below what the government’s economic blueprint’s estimation that the South African economy could grow 5.4 percent.

South Africans continue to believe that these downgrades are “completely unacceptable” bids by foreign, unelected capitalist bodies telling banking institutions which are cash flush and coming up with harsh economic verdicts on the economy of a sovereign and democratic government.

But negative comments about rating agencies do not only come from South Africa. It has become a global affair. About three years ago, criticism of rating agencies resurfaced after the outbreak of the Eurozone debt crisis.

These attacks, however, started after the global financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 when the agencies were accused of failing to detect the biggest economic meltdown since the Depression of 1929.

In 2012, European Union leaders objected that the rating agencies were an “oligopoly” which issued self-fulfilling prophecies of doom, greatly aggravating the crisis.

There is also an undercurrent of criticism that they are based in the United States, the world’s biggest economy. This has made them one of the poorest inventions the world’s financial system has ever seen, because it is impossible for three entities to rate the entire world. The world should have had at least 10 of them, spread throughout the world, in Europe, Asia and other emerging regions.

There is also a call that the world should introduce verification to check if there is abusive behaviour by the agencies.

In addition, they have been accused of not merely passing on information but expressing subjective judgements, speeding up trends that already existed.

It will be interesting to know what their impact on the economic growth that has been going on in African continent in recent years will be.

Africa has been one of the fastest-emerging markets globally after the discovery of oil and gas in many African countries like Ghana, Mozambique and Uganda among others. This has prompted an amazing growth in the number of the middle class households on the continent.

I think if these rating agencies continue to do business the way have been doing it all along, Africa’s economic growth trajectory could be stymied.