Controversial state pension plan: New report shows how govt ignored concerns

JOHANNESBURG - The Department of Social Development’s Green Paper on Comprehensive Social Security and Retirement Reform ignored a host of concerns raised by the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) task team, which looked at its proposals over the years.

The department’s Green

Paper, which was gazetted last week, triggered an outcry as its proposals would force South Africans to save for retirement via a state-managed fund.

Now, Nedlac has published a report reflecting the engagements between government, business, organised labour and community representatives since the first discussion paper on SA’s social security approach was published in 2012.

Former Minister of Social Development, Bathabile Dlamini, submitted the paper to a Nedlac task team in 2016.

The task team produced a draft Nedlac report in March 2019, with a host of suggestions and highlights of areas that needed more research.

But the green paper gazetted last week “largely” reproduced the text and recommendations of the 2012 paper. The Nedlac report said the business sector’s inputs during years of engagements on the issue went “largely unheard.”

“The research undertaken by the ILO (International Labour Organisation) and others on behalf of the Nedlac Task Team appeared to have

been disregarded and that there has been no progress in building a quantified and costed evidence-based approach to this reform programme,” reads the Nedlac report.

The task team had commissioned substantial research over the years while it engaged with the government over the feasibility of proposals contained in the 2012 discussion paper.

These included a legal opinion on the constitutionality of the proposals, the actuarial sustainability of the National Social Security Fund, and the impact it could have on the investment environment and capital markets.

– FIN24.