[MUST LISTEN] Government might be eyeing your pension
President Cyril Ramaphosa says nationwide consultations will be launched on what government's stance should be on prescribed assets.
“We are faced with a situation where our financial resources have been depleted, and we are facing a situation where our developmental needs are enormous,” said Ramaphosa during a question and answer session in the National Assembly on Thursday.
A supplementary question was posed to Ramaphosa by the Democratic Alliance (DA) over government’s stance on the controversial instrument.
Prescribed assets would mean that government will utilise pension funds and other large institutions to invest a certain percent of their monies in social and economic programs.
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The policy, which is also a resolution of the ANC’s 2019 election manifesto, is nothing new to South Africa.
In the 1970s and 1980s the policy had a detrimental impact on the country’s inflation which averaged around 11%.
Ramaphosa said a nationwide dialogue will be held to determine what policy direction the country will be taken.
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“In a number of pension funds funding is utilised for developmental purposes for infrastructure, and quite often those pension funds make good returns,” he said.