This paper examines the interaction between macroeconomic variables and the fiscal and monetary policy mix between 2012 and 2019, a period characterised by increases in public debt and the sovereign risk premium, and low economic growth. Using a large Bayesian vector autoregression, we find that monetary and fiscal policy fail to account for the observed lower real gross domestic product between 2012 and 2019. Based on the historical relationship between monetary and fiscal policy in South Africa, the results indicate that we should have observed much higher growth, especially during the 2015–2019 period. In addition, we find little evidence that low growth during the period can be explained by the much-criticised “anti-growth” monetary policy.