ALLAN GREENBLO: Prescribed assets: by hook or by crook
Can Gigaba halt the plan? Does he want to?
Whisper the thought, hoping perhaps in vain that finance minister Malusi Gigaba isn’t already contemplating it, that he does have a means to evade the jam of unaffordable government guarantees colliding with underfunded state-owned enterprises (SOEs). By hook or by crook, Gigaba must find a way. Introduction of prescribed assets will be by crook. Be ready to resist. From his perspective, the route of prescribed assets will be easier than hooking the Public Investment Corp (PIC) into loading up on stock in badly run SOEs. It won’t cause consternation among members of the Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF), the PIC’s largest client, who’ve been threatening withdrawals. They’d have nowhere else to go. It won’t fall into the category of "capture", overriding the trusteeship duties of the GEPF board or the asset-management mandates of the PIC’s government-appointed directors. They’d have no choice. It will, however, fall neatly into the socialistic empathies of ANC-speak. A regimen...
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