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South Africa is in deep trouble and the government will need to find new ways to fund its struggling state-owned enterprises, according to the chief economist at the Efficient Group, Dawie Roodt,

One of the ways that the government could try and raise money is through prescribed assets, he said.

“For instance, you could force pension funds to lend money to Eskom. Of course, that is not necessarily a very good investment and it is unlikely you will get a good return.

“I do believe that we will eventually see prescribed assets, but I think it is a very long process and at this stage, I would not advise people to react too hastily,” he said.

“Wait to see what is going to happen before you make decisions like resigning and trying to get your money out of your pension fund.”

In August, President Cyril Ramaphosa said that South Africa should investigate using worker pensions to finance development and infrastructure projects.

“We need to discuss this matter (prescribed assets) and we need to discuss it with a view to actually saying what is it we can do to utilise the various resources in our country to generate growth in a purposeful manner,” Ramaphosa said.

The ANC has also previously floated the idea of using pensions to help fund embattled state-owned enterprises.

Bad idea

The possibility of prescribed assets was again discussed in a parliamentary debate on Tuesday (10 September).

The DA’s Natasha Mazzone said that the proposed scheme would cause incredible damage to the savings of millions of South Africans, and is unlikely to help the country’s state-owned enterprises to recover from debt.

“South Africa has hundreds of SOEs, many of them are either completely dysfunctional, bankrupt, or frankly serve no purpose other than lining the pockets of the connected few,” she said.

The DA’s Geordin Hill-Lewis added that the proposal was equivalent to theft.

“This government is proposing to steal pensions of hardworking South Africans to pay for their mismanagement,” he said.

“Stealing from people’s future pensions is still theft and should be fought by every South African who has diligently saved for their retirement.”

Article by IOL

Cape Town – Pressure group Stop COCT has alerted electricity consumers countrywide about the “possibility” through which municipalities can now add unregulated amounts to electricity tariffs by seeking council approval only.

This comes after a meeting Stop COCT had with the City of Cape Town and the Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) on Tuesday regarding a multiple number of complaints around electricity tariff issues and practices implemented by the City.

For months Stop COCT had been asking questions around the discrepancy between the City’s implemented tariffs across all blocks versus what Nera publishes as approved tariffs on their website.

Since 2016 the City’s implemented electricity tariffs were between 2% and 18% higher than the Nersa-approved tariffs, StopCOCT said.

While Nersa had indicatied that the meeting would be a mediation session, the City later reported this meeting as a normal, but closed meeting, Stop COCT said on Wednesday.

What concerned Stop COCT too was that representatives were turned away from the meeting and itT had to nominate four people randomly to sit in on the mediation session.

“Many of our issues were not addressed as the City chose to have a single representative who was not capable to deal with the many issues we had.

“The electricity director, Dr Les Rencontré, could not deal with billing issues, the City’s debt collection practices, public participation Issues, electricity budget issues or the effect of property values on electricity tariffs.

“Stop COCT had to accept that the City was going to only discuss the home user tariff issue.”

Rencontré explained the difference of R0.23 per unit in this block where the City tariff (R1.75) is higher than the Nersa-approved tariff (R1.52) as an “unregulated” portion of the tariff, Stop COCT said.

In Nersa’s view, this addition to its approved tariff is outside its scope of regulation.

“The City told Stop COCT that no authority other than the city council is needed to approve this unregulated addition to Nersa’s approved tariffs.

“The City adds this “unregulated” amount across the entire inclined block tariff (IBT) the City uses to set lifeline, domestic and home eser tariffs.

“Since 2016 up to R0.32 was added, ‘unregulated’, to each unit of electricity Capetonians purchased.”

Stop COCT is alarmed that a “precedent has now been created by the City of Cape Town and accepted by Nersa which all municipalities can now follow to add unregulated amounts to our electricity tariffs. Only council approval is required”.

The City said in a statement yesterday it had met with Nersa and a number of complainants who had disputed the City’s electricity tariffs.

The City reiterated its position that “all components of the City’s electricity tariffs were approved by the relevant authorities, namely Nersaand the City’s council in accordance with all applicable laws”.

“The City maintained that as the fixed electricity charge in particular had been approved by Nersa, the complaints about the charge did not constitute a dispute and could thus not be mediated in terms of Nersa’s mandate.”

Articel by IOL

It’s the year 2026 and we are all celebrating; the National Health Insurance (NHI) has just been implemented.

Everyone in South Africa is now entitled to free, world-class health services. It certainly wasn’t easy, but finally, the dream is a reality!

All South Africans now have access to the same high-quality medical services, like the public healthcare service that preceded the NHI.

The pilot programs that tested the NHI beforehand may have been failures, but no person in their right mind can ever doubt the need for an NHI.

Back in the day, many doomsayers dismissed the plan as unrealistic and unaffordable, but a principled and effective ANC government proved everyone wrong.

Today we celebrate as all citizens have access to equal medical treatment, regardless of income or social status.

Of course, all you must do is follow the rules of the system:

When you first experience any symptoms of some sort of ailment, you can apply to see a doctor.

A competent, helpful government agent will assign a doctor to you. No need for you to find your own because, rightly so, you (as a layman) are not equipped to judge whether you are sick or not, or to decide on a particular doctor you want to see.

Time to let go of your bourgeois tendencies.

You will then need to go to one of the assigned locations to apply to see a doctor in person.

The inconvenience of standing in a queue for a few hours to see your friendly government agent is a small price to pay for free healthcare.

Why are you lending your ear out to rumours of people in black cars with blue lights that are getting preferential treatment?

Of course, these rumours are false and just made up by people unwilling to accept the progress that the NHI brought to South Africa. You should also ignore the fake news stories that a small fee can shorten the queue.

You will be assigned a doctor, eventually. A Cuban doctor may not be your first choice, but all doctors are essentially the same.

Either way, most selfish doctors left the country just after the NHI was implemented. This is probably for the best, because you don’t want a money hungry doctor to treat you in any way.

You might have to wait a couple of months before you get to see the doctor and unfortunately you might have to travel a bit.

Again, this slight inconvenience is a small price to pay. You should just be grateful (and stop complaining) that you have access to free medical services.

Millions of people are not as lucky as you are! Your symptoms are not that serious and only hypochondriacs will make such a fuss about fainting spells.

Your file might go missing, but please be assured, we have it under control. We will locate your file as soon as possible. You must wait a couple of months for your turn, so just bear with us. The wait will also give you ample time to organise your transport.

This is all normal of course! Nobody can expect that such a comprehensive world class system, designed to service millions of people, won’t experience some problems now and again.

It would have been easier if you didn’t lose so much weight though, and your fainting spells haven’t become more regular. A little unfortunate also, that the medication ran out by the time that you got to see the doctor. These are all small kinks to work out and really a small sacrifice from your side while we tend to it.

Initially, there was a little resistance to the NHI. Where would the money come from, the greedy asked? But in the end, it turned out to be easy.

Previous experience showed that personal income tax rates can be increased without much resistance.

Further, it wasn’t that difficult to convince people that an extra solidarity charge on capital was required to finance the NHI, and although this led to a further downgrading, nobody ever said change would be easy.

There were a couple of anti-revolutionaries that insisted on people paying for their own medical services, but after private medical services were declared illegal, they realised the error of their ways.

Coincidentally the private health service industry eventually also saw reason and voluntarily made all private facilities available to the NHI.

A pity that many of these facilities has gone backwards since, and so quickly – just more proof that you can never trust the private sector.

There were suggestions, before the implementation of the NHI, that medical services should mostly be privatised and that everyone would then reap the benefits of a private health care service.

How lucky you are that logic and morals prevailed once again.

This is an opinion piece by Dawie Roodt, chief economist of the Efficient Group.

Sometimes it takes an ordinary man in the street to tell the politicians a downright inconvenient truth. Meet David Drew, a humble, rational chemical engineer, who sat down and did some number-crunching based on the most conservative NHI funding estimates available, using the broadest possible swathe of sources. Here’s his conclusion; even with the most cautious assumptions, we simply don’t have the tax base to support the universal healthcare promise that’s been tabled. This is not rhetoric claiming the NHI to be a utopian dream. It’s a data-based, hard-nosed argument that the money will place an impossible burden on the existing tax base and per-person healthcare spend. Here’s a teaser; the government will need R550bn annually to fund the 46 million people currently using public healthcare – more than 3 times the current Health budget and more than 40% of the total tax collected by SARS annually. Corporate taxes would double. With 80% of personal income tax paid by about 1.9 million people (3.3% of the population), Drew reckons funding an NHI would cost each of us privileged few over R13,000 extra in personal income tax per month. Something or someone’s going to have to give. Good luck Eskom, good luck SOEs. – Chris Bateman

There has been so much discussion about NHI recently but surprisingly the hard numbers appear to be very difficult to find. Perhaps this is intentional but it could just be that few have bothered to really do the maths. At University I had a rather irreverent Applied Maths Professor that told us as wide eyed first year engineers that “gambling was a tax for people that can’t do maths”. I’m beginning to think that NHI is an idea being proposed by those that also can’t do maths.

As indicated the numbers are hard to find and even harder to find consensus on, but I’ve tried to trawl through government statistics and a variety of published reports to try make some sense of exactly how much we spend on health as a country to try and do the maths myself.

The answer, that most agree on, is that currently the private medical industry & public health service spend similar amounts per annum. The now Ex-Health Minister said that government spends 4.1% of GDP on Health and the private sector 4.4%, but based on the latest GPD figures from StatsSA, this estimate exceeds the official Treasury 2019/20 health budget of R163bn by around R40bn. Fin24 recently reported that collectively we spend R4trn /year on Health Care, but considering that our current GDP estimate ( StatsSA August 2019 ) is only R4.98trn, I think they have added a zero somewhere.

As such I have to assume that the total health care spend ( including out of pocket expenses ) is between R330-R400bn/year, with the private medical care exceeding public spending by a few %. Of course the total spend is not the issue, the key is the R/person spend and all agree that public health care spending covers far more people than the private schemes. Again the estimates vary from around 14-16% (Health Minister, Competition Commission ) to between 20-25% (Africa Check). If we accept the population estimate of around 56 million people in South Africa currently and choose a mid-point of the estimates above, this allows us to calculate an approximate spend per person, per year. And this is where it gets interesting.

Based on the assumptions above, this suggests that in the Private medical space we spend around R19,000 per person per year and in the public sector only around R4,000 per person per year. The latter aligns with published government data which gives me some confidence in my estimates. So basically government spends only around 20% per capita compared to the private sector.

Now clearly some may argue that private medical aid exceeds the standard that we aim to provide under NHI, but at the very least NHI claims to be able to cover the prescribed minimum benefits (PMB’s) as currently defined for private medical aids. I would argue that most would expect MORE from NHI than just PMB’s and the NHI white paper actually suggests that they “include other services” beyond those covered by medical aids and eliminate out of pocket expenses, but let’s assume that this is the absolute minimum.

How much of our medical aid contributions go to cover PMB’s is difficult to determine as an outsider, but in 2016 the Competition Commission estimated the cost at R608/per beneficiary per month for 2015 and increasing at about 2 to 3 times CPI. This would put the 2019 cost at around R950 per month or about 60% of the cost of private health care, which seems reasonable.

Now if we assume that public health care can deliver the same efficiency as the private system, which even if we build in the cost / profit of medical aid administrators is a bold assumption, the math suggests that government would need to AT LEAST be spending about R1,000 per person per month for the approximately 46 million people currently relying on the public health system. This works out at around R550bn/year. Although combined with private spend this only around 15% of GPD (which is not unusual in global terms ), this is more than 3 times the current Health budget and more than 40% of the total tax collected by SARS annually. And this is before we increase the burden on the public purse from those that then opt out of private medical aid or go much beyond offering PMB’s.

Clearly many will opt out of private medical aid if this scenario ever became a fully funded reality, but let’s exclude them for now because they are currently covering their own costs in one way or another. So at the very least we need approximately R390bn more for the public health system to cover PMB’s. If we expect more than PMB’s from the NHI, then that number can only grow.

So where could this extra R390bn come from? Well clearly it needs to come from one form of tax or another and therefore we look to the usual suspects, Personal Income Tax, VAT and Company tax which make up 80% of our taxes collected. It doesn’t sound difficult until you look at the numbers. As per Treasury, the estimated collections from Corporate income tax in 2019/20 is only R218bn, so we would need to more than DOUBLE corporate income taxes to raise this. VAT isn’t much better, with an estimated R325bn in 2019/20. Basic maths suggests that even with VAT raised to 20% we would only raise around R100bn more per year and clearly that isn’t going to happen.

So more than likely the burden will be expected to fall on personal income tax which in 2019/20 should be just short of R500bn/year. To some extent this is implied in the published documents on NHI which suggest that the “health costs for the poor and vulnerable are shared by the whole of society”. Whilst this may work in more affluent countries the problem once again is simply a math problem. There are simply just far too few “rich” to bear this additional cost.

To give some context to the practical realities of the problem, consider that Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU) recently published that a household after tax income of just R7,313/month puts you in richest 10% of all South Africans and R48,753 puts you in the top 1%. In terms of taxes Africa Check recently confirmed public statements that suggested that as much as 80% of personal income tax is paid by as few as 1.9 million people (3.3% of the population).

So if we assume that this same ratio would apply to this additional funding requirement, (i.e. 80% must be paid by around 1.9 million people ) then we can calculate that on average this would mean an average of around R164,000 more personal tax per tax payer per year or round R13,600 per month. In the context that 70% of these 1.9 million tax payers have an estimated take home monthly income of LESS than R48,753 per month, per house hold, it’s easy to see that this is simply not possible. Clearly in a progressive tax environment the burden on the poorest of this 3.3% would be lower than R13,600 per month, but equally the individual burden on the richest would be many times higher.

It’s important to remember that these tax payers are the same people that we assumed would continue to contribute to their private medical aid or contribute a similar amount through taxes. As such the amount above would be in addition to all of these costs. Simply put, to recover all of this additional funding from personal income tax would mean an average of 78% increase from what in global terms are already extremely high marginal tax rates.

As much as NHI is a noble concept and in a utopian South Africa it would dramatically change the lives of millions of South Africans, at this point, the inconvenient truth is that even with the most conservative assumptions, we simply don’t have the tax base to support the promise that has been tabled. And this is before the potentially negative impact of government inefficiency, fraud and corruption. It also assumes that there will be no net negative impact of those currently covered by private medical aid opting out and effectively then contributing less than they currently do to private schemes through taxes which I believe is highly likely.

Unfortunately NHI is not a moral debate, it’s a math problem.

Article by Chris Bateman and BizNews

• South Africa has new draft rules about what can be sold as coffee, and what can’t.
• Chicory mixtures have a place in the rules – but to be coffee mixtures, they need to be at least half coffee.
• That means three South African favourites will definitely, absolutely, and undoubtedly not be coffee.

South Africa has new draft rules about what may or may not be sold as coffee in South Africa – and some firm favourite mixtures that reference coffee in their names will be in the “not” list.

The department of agriculture, land reform and rural development last week issued the first draft of “regulations relating to coffee, chicory and related products intended for sale  in the Republic of South Africa, in terms of legislation that allows it to set standards for agricultural products.

The rules specify 11 categories of “coffee, chicory and related products” that range from pure ground coffee to pure chicory. Those include “mixed coffee” or “coffee mixture”, which must be at least 75% coffee.

There is also a category for “coffee and chicory mixture”, which can be up to half chicory – though it must still have a caffeine content of at least 0.6%.

At that lower limit, a coffee and chicory mixture will not have much of a kick. Under the draft rules instant coffee must have a caffeine content of at least 2.25% – nearly four times greater than coffee and chicory mix minimum – and instant decaffeinated coffee may contain up to 0.3% caffeine.

Anything called “coffee” must be just that; neither ground coffee nor instant coffee may contain any flavouring or colouring under the rules. Ground coffee, or coffee powder, is also required to have “the characteristic coffee flavour”.

Instant coffee, meanwhile, must “dissolve in boiling water in 30 seconds with moderate stirring” to qualify for the name.

Coffee essence, or liquid coffee extract, may have glycerol or sugar added – but no other ingredients.

By that standard Koffiehuis, which translates literally as “Coffee House”, is not coffee because it contains glucose.

Meanwhile neither Frisco nor Ricoffy qualifies as coffee under the draft rules, or as coffee mixtures – or even as coffee and chicory mixture. Both contain only 25% coffee.

The regulations are open for public comment until the end of September.

Phillip de Wet , Business Insider SA

President Cyril Ramaphosa has made an impassioned address to the nation on Thursday, as the presidency faces one of the biggest issues plaguing South Africa. Thousands of protesters demanded that swift action must be taken against rapists and those who commit femicide – and it seems Cyril is on the same page.

In a brief, informal address to demonstrators earlier in the day, Ramaphosa hinted that there would be sweeping changes to the law in order to give the women of South Africa a greater sense of safety. Many of his proposals will need to be debated in Parliament, and a majority are reactive rather than proactive.

Cyril Ramaphosa talks tough on gender-based violence

But nonetheless, this is progress. The reaction has been swift and Ramaphosa told crowds he agreed with their sentiments, stating that “enough is enough” when it comes to gender-based violence (GBV). His televised speech was a robust one, and there is plenty of legislation that could soon be amended.

What is more, you can thank the scores of protesters who marched to Parliament under the #AmINext banner to force the president’s hand on this one. Show us a more iconic image than this, please. We’ll wait:

Immediate actions to be taken by Cyril Ramaphosa and the government:

State of emergency
The first thing he did was relatively easy, and relies on the president’s executive powers. Ramaphosa has indeed called a state of emergency on gender-based violence. This will allow Parliament to address the matter quicker than usual, and more funding can be made available to implement measures aimed at keeping women safe in South Africa.

Women’s shelters
On Wednesday, we reported that France was trying to work out how to quell its own femicide problem. Around 0.12 women in every 100 000 are murdered in the European country each year. President Macron has announced that thousands more women’s shelters will be built, and Ramaphosa has vowed to do the same – even if he scrimped on the details.

Re-open all cases relating to gender-based violence
Ramaphosa is seeking justice, and he told the nation that all serious cases of gender-based violence that have been left unsolved or “gone cold” must be reconsidered by the relevant authorities. The president also punted the introduction of special courts to deal with gender-based violence – a proposal he intends to run by cabinet in the near future.

Laws that Cyril Ramaphosa and the government will seek to change
Harsher penalties for rapists and murders
Item one on the agenda for everyone concerned. The way these particular criminals are processed by the legal system is set for a major shake-up – if Cyril gets his way: He reiterated the calls he made earlier on Thursday to introduce harsher penalties against these perpetrators.

The president certainly didn’t mince his words, and subject to Parliamentary approval, the deterrents could be strengthened in the following ways:

Automatic life sentences for rapists and murderers, with the term “life” meaning exactly that, and not just a 25-year stretch.
Bail will be withdrawn from suspects in major cases.
Those found guilty could also have any chance of parole taken away from them.
Plough more funds in preventing femicide
Cyril confirmed he had asked Finance Minister Tito Mboweni to allocate more funds to fighting GBV. With the extra cash, Ramaphosa stated he wants an overhaul of rehabilitation programmes for criminals and a wholesale increase in where they are available. He also said that there will be “changes to the school curriculum” to educate young adults on issues like femicide and rape.

Emergency Parliamentary reviews
Two things to know here: It looks like Ramaphosa will consider cross-party contributions in trying to identify “emergency interventions” which can be implemented immediately. That “e-word” proved popular, as he also revealed plans to establish emergency response teams who specifically deal with crimes against women, children and minorities.

Naming and shaming those who commit crimes against women and children
There’s been a lot of clamour for this, and the president is ready to listen. Ramaphosa is making the bold decision to ensure both the Violence Against Women and Children Register and the Sex Offenders Register are officially made accessible to the public: It’s a move that is likely to draw the most controversy, though.

“We are going to modernise and overhaul the register of gender based violence. The register will be taken to Parliament for debate to make the names of those convicted public. I will also urge parliament to amend legislation so that the National Register of Sexual Offenders is made public, too.”

Cyril Ramaphosa

Articel by Tom Head and the South African

The state’s top legal minds have given the proposed National Health Insurance bill their stamp of approval in terms of its constitutionality.

Acting chief state law adviser Ayesha Jahoor told MPs on Thursday that the bill complied with Section 27 of the constitution, which provides for everyone a right to have access to health care services, saying that the state should take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation of these rights.

Jahoor said the bill, which her office certified as “constitutionally sound”, should be regarded as a measure to give effect to this right enshrined in the constitution. It also complies with SA’s international obligations.

“Parliament, in passing the proposed legislation, would not be acting capriciously or arbitrarily or in violation of rule of law, or in violation of any provision of the constitution, should it enact this bill,” said Jahoor.

She was appearing, alongside health minister Zweli Mkhize, before the National Assembly’s portfolio committee on health.

Mkhize was presenting the bill to MPs for the first time since it was tabled in parliament during the parliamentary recess three weeks ago.

The bill seeks to provide equal primary health care for all South Africans regardless of their employment and financial status – but it has drawn criticism from opposition parties and from some experts in the health sector who argue that South Africans should not be compelled to join the proposed scheme whether they wished to or not.

Its roll-out was expected to cost around R250bn a year.

The DA has already threatened to go to the Constitutional Court to stop the implementation of the bill should it become law.

DA leader Mmusi Maimane and the party’s spokesperson on health, Siviwe Gwarube, told journalists two weeks ago that the bill was not consistent with schedule 4 of the constitution in that it usurped the powers of provinces in the administration of public health care.

“If it doesn’t pass constitutional muster, I’m willing to go to whatever court there is in the land to fight this matter. Don’t undermine the powers of provinces, it’s expressed in the constitution. We cannot be passing laws that will not pass constitutional muster,” said Maimane at the time.

Zweli Mkhize assured a hospital conference that the national health insurance fund won’t have the power to take risks or raise debts

National Health Insurance (NHI) will be rolled out in a manner that is affordable and will not pose the kinds of risks to the economy that state-owned electricity generator Eskom has done, health minister Zweli Mkhize said on Monday.

Eskom posted a net after-tax loss of R21bn for the year to March 31, and its debt currently stands at R440bn — double the current health budget.

NHI is the government’s policy for achieving universal health coverage. Its first piece of enabling legislation was tabled in parliament on August 8, paving the way for the establishment of a central NHI fund that will purchase healthcare services on behalf of patients, which are to be provided free at the point of care.

“It is a fallacy to postulate that the NHI will bankrupt the country. This will be an entity in terms of schedule 3 of the PFMA (Public Finance Management Act), which means unlike an entity like Eskom, it will not have the power to take risks and engage in raising debts and other speculative financial transactions.

Article by TAMAR KAHN and Business Day

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.

Appearing before Parliament on Thursday, President Cyril Ramaphosa called for a “broad and wholesome” discussion around prescribed assets, which could oblige retirement funds to invest in state-owned enterprises.

The term ‘prescribed assets’ refers to a policy where the state obliges institutions such as pension funds and insurance companies to invest a part of their funds in state institutions or bonds.

For detractors, prescribed assets are a way for the state to raid retirement funds to prop up unattractive investments, such as heavily indebted state-owned entities. They warn that obliging funds to invest could artificially distort the market by diverting funds away from more appealing investments.

For supporters, the requirement to invest in specific state institutions or bonds is a quick way to boost the flow of funds to important entities, which can help grow the economy and create jobs.

2. Why are they in the news now?

The ANC resolved at its 2017 national at Nasrec – where Ramaphosa was elected ANC president – to investigate a “new prescribed asset requirement” to ensure that a “portion of all financial institutions’ funds be invested in public infrastructure, skills development and job-creation”. This call was renewed in its 2019 election manifesto.

The inclusion of the resolution – one of many in the party’s 2017 report – was an important new development. While prescribed assets had been floated in the past, there had not been serious moves to investigate their reintroduction after the apartheid-era Act on Prescribed Assets was done away with in 1989.

In June 2013, for example, in response to a Parliamentary question, then-Minister of Finance Pravin Gordhan said it was “not government policy to tell pension funds how to invest”.

Prescribed assets were not mentioned in resolutions from the ruling party’s 2012 Mangaung conference or in its 2014 election manifesto.

3. Does the government have an official prescribed asset policy?

No. This is why the ANC’s 2019 election manifesto is referred to so often.

In a speech before Parliament on Thursday, President Cyril Ramaphosa called for a “broad and wholesome” discussion around the issue.

Ramaphosa said the question should be how “various resources in SA” could be utilised to “generate growth in a purposeful manner”.

“In the end we will pursue policies that advance the interest of our people here in South Africa and also advance the interest of pension fund holders,” he said.

Opposition party the DA, in response, said that Ramaphosa’s answer was the “closest we have yet come to an official confirmation that asset prescription will be introduced.”

“This is an unacceptable and reckless policy proposal, shamefully taken straight from the apartheid government policy playbook,” said DA MP and the party’s spokesperson on finance, Geordin Hill-Lewis.

4. What are asset managers and economists saying?

Janina Slawski – principal investment consultant at Alexander Forbes Investments – noted in a report in June that if investors have to invest in specified assets, this will generally lead to “sub-optimal” investment outcomes.

Investors won’t be able to negotiate better terms for investment or “walk away” if they don’t think terms are favourable, she said.

“The introduction of prescription and the potential reduction in investment returns would leave members poorer, contrary to the positive changes achieved to date through the Retirement Reform initiatives,” Slawski warned.

“Trustees of retirement funds have a fiduciary duty to act in the best interest of members, and prescribed assets will limit the extent to which trustees can fulfil these roles.”

Slawski said that there should be a process of extensive consultation before requirements for the prescription of assets are enforced through legislation.

Magda Wierzycka, the CEO of Sygnia, said earlier in the year that prescribed assets were a “blunt instrument”.

She said that while they could fill the “immediate gap in the funding of bankrupt SOEs”, they would also “divert investments away from the funding of corporates that create jobs and contribute to growing the economy”.

“It will also affect the revenue derived from the taxation of such corporates, so what is taken to fill one bucket empties another,” she said.

Investec chief economist, Annabel Bishop, in a report released in July, said the prescription of assets could have implications for government debt and the country’s credit rating.

“A prescribed asset policy is dangerous in an environment where government and SOE finances have been materially deteriorated, as pensioners can risk losing their pensions, especially if further financial deterioration occurs,” Bishop warned.

“The persistence of pursuing prescribed assets as a government policy should be examined, as such a policy could have unintended consequences over and above that of further expanding SOE and state debt, and so engendering a credit rating downgrade for the country from Moody’s,” she added.

5. When will we have clarity?

With government calling for more discussion, and no policy papers out yet, it is too early to say, how, when, or if the state will proceed with prescribed assets.

ANC Alliance partner Cosatu has said that, in principle, both public and private funds should be required for investment in government bonds for the development of the state, with the caveat that there should be conditions attached to the investments to prevent looting and ensure depositors are protected.

Old Mutual, meanwhile, has said that the “devil certainly will be in the detail”.

“The definition of prescribed assets and the practical implementation thereof will be crucial to assure South Africa’s savers that their savings will remain secure. Until we have more clarity, we at Old Mutual Corporate Consultants do not believe that there is any reason to panic.”

Articel by News 24