JOHANNESBURG - The rand is slowly recovering from explosive allegations by US ambassador Reuben Brigety.
He claims SA supplied Russia with weapons using the Lady R frigate in December.
The Presidency has since denied the allegations but questions remain about exactly what happened.
The diplomatic fallout has hammered the rand with it reaching its worse level in years.
"We have a serious financial market impact of what's happened. You can see it in bond deals, government's debt is trading significantly worse off than where it was a week ago," said Stuart Theobald from Intellidex.
"That means the real cost to government when debt has been rolled over it's going to be at higher yields and that is going to consume more of national budget."