South Africa’s leading financial and investment institutions have been ‘ominously silent’ on the government’s openly stated intention to expropriate pensions and savings through asset prescription, but the time has come for them to take a stand against this ‘unnecessary and dangerous’ policy, the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) said.
IRR Deputy Head of Policy Research Hermann Pretorius warned that the organisation ‘will not shy away from exposing those who, when South Africans needed them most, chose to sell out hard-working people who played by the rules, who saved and managed their finances responsibly, and who trusted banks and other financial institutions with their money’.
The IRR pointed out that, having already compromised South Africa’s fiscal position through irresponsible and unproductive spending, the SACP-ANC government was now desperately seeking a new source of funding ‘for its risky and expensive attempt to lead a post-pandemic recovery by spending billions on policies with a proven track record of failure’.
A far better alternative route to recovery – through stimulating rising growth, job-creation and, ultimately, prosperity for all South Africans – was spelled out in its latest policy document, Growth & Recovery: A strategy to #GetSAWorking. The strategy sets out how South Africa could achieve economic growth of 7% by the end of the decade, and that it could do so at low financial cost – even if the political costs may be considerable.
In a statement, the IRR said: ‘The document makes a strong case against raiding the pensions and savings of hard-working South Africans through aggressive asset prescription, and highlights the choice now facing corporate South Africa between protecting the interests and rights of clients or selling them out to an irresponsible government.
‘By publicly stating their opposition to the government’s intention to expropriate savings and pensions, and heeding the call of the International Monetary Fund for South Africa to adopt growth-enhancing structural reforms by endorsing the IRR’s economic recovery plan, corporate South Africa can prove it is on the side of South Africans who deserve to own what they have worked hard to earn.’
Pretorius said: ‘Corporate South Africa has a duty to clients, to South Africans being targeted by a parasitic government, and to common sense to oppose the government on the issue of prescribed assets and to support solutions that will see South Africa prosper.’
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