ALLAN GREENBLO: The strength of the amended financial sector code
Retirement funds are the cement for a social compact on which SA’s stability and welfare rely
It goes without saying that the broad mass of South Africans should be helped to understand the benefits to them of saving for the long term. But there’s another dimension to it, more subliminal yet no less significant. One of the last things a Zuma-infused government would seriously welcome is consumers of financial products who’re alert, aware and active in the control of these savings. This in itself is a strong reason to encourage vigorously the financial education of consumers generally, retirement-fund members and trustees particularly. Imagine a situation where the 8m or so members of SA retirement funds, swelled by these members’ dependants, are alive to the linkage between their benefits and the behaviour of their government; where they take a stand (through their representatives) against the waste and worse that directly affects their funds’ investments (cumulatively worth more than R5trillion); where there’s widespread exercise of their rights (often neglected) to vote in...
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