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Picture: 123RF
Picture: 123RF

I have been complaining for months that numerous capital investments made by the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF), through the Public Investment Corporation, have been lost because they were gambling in unlisted debt and equity instruments. Many were euphemistically known as “socially responsible investments”.

After much noise, created by me and others, the UIF has placed a moratorium on new capital investments by the PIC into unlisted companies and instruments. The losses in the past have run into tens of millions of rand and no-one seems to know what went wrong. There has been no consequence management and no-one has been held responsible for these lost millions.

Despite this reckless behaviour the UIF still seems to want to boast that it has created and retained jobs due to its “socially responsible investments”, though the employment & labour ministry can’t seem to tell me how many jobs have been created as opposed to those retained.

It also can’t say how much each job has cost the fiscus.

The employment & labour minister still doesn’t seem to understand that the monies controlled by the UIF do not belong to the government. They belong to the workers of SA.

Michael Bagraim, MP
DA employment & labour spokesperson

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