POLITICAL NEWS - The party’s manifesto hints at targeting pensions through prescribed investments, ‘which will see half the population’s money used to bail out failing entities like Eskom’.
The prescribed investments for pension funds hinted by the ANC in its 2019 election manifesto could lead to the collapse of South Africa’s pension funds and pensioners dying poor.
Explaining prescribed investments during a presentation yesterday, economist Mike Schussler said government would be able to dictate to fund managers where and how much of their assets to invest, be it in government bonds, bailing out crippled state-owned enterprises (SOEs), or even funding the previously proposed Russian nuclear power station project.
If this is done, added to the way SOEs were run into the ground and looted in the past, workers’ hard-earned pensions could ultimately be squandered.
“If your money is invested in Eskom and all this mismanagement and wastage is happening, Eskom will say ‘we do not have money to pay you back’ and then you get less or nothing of what you have put in. You are going to die poor,” Schussler said.
