R33-billion in pension funds squandered on high-risk, politically-driven investments

The business rescue of Daybreak - a poultry farm bought by the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) in 2015 for R1.2 billion rand - is not the only horror story involving the irresponsible use of the Government Employee Pension Fund (GEPF). In this interview with BizNews, Zirk Gous, the spokesperson for the Association for Monitoring and Advocacy of Government Pensions (AMAGP), says: “…we need to act on 33 billion rands which are squandered in irresponsible political high-risk investments. And that is an urgent thing.” He says the “core problem” is that both the Government Employee Pension Fund and the Public Investment Corporation are “under total political control…so the people which should be called to account for the pain and the suffering of the Daybreak employees (are the) Minister of Finance, (the) Board of Trustees of the GEPF, the Board of Trustees of the Public Investment Corporation.” Meanwhile, says Gous, they are investigsations options to prevent further bad investments. “…the key to that will be we will have to amend the legislation, the Government Employee Pension Law. We will have to amend the Public Investment Corporation Act to remove the political control.”