South Africa’s intentions to tap state workers’ pension funds to revive a struggling economy would be strongly opposed, the Sunday Times reports, citing a major trade group on pensions.
The state workers’ pension funds lobby group doesn’t trust government investing pension funds to bail out struggling state-owned companies such as utility Eskom Holdings, said Adamus Stemmet, spokesman for the Association of Monitoring and Advocacy of Government Pensions. The investments wouldn’t yield positive returns, Stemmet told the weekly.
The Public Investment Corporation, which manages about R2trn on behalf of state workers, is under pressure to adopt a mandate that includes economic growth rather than focus purely on financial returns.