I have always believed that pension funds are designed for one purpose only: to ensure that members have a comfortable retirement. They are not there to fund government projects — the appropriate vehicle for that would be a sovereign wealth fund. Nor should they be piggy banks or ATMs for members.
Few countries allow members to withdraw their full accumulated pension capital when they change jobs, but in SA, 90% of people do so, which is the main reason that so little capital is preserved. It means that more than half of fund members have accumulated less than R50,000 in their pension pots...
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