Government’s SMME pension-raid plan too risky, says analyst

The latest proposal by ANC national spokesman Pule Mabe of tapping into pensions to close the funding gap of small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) could be risky, independent political analyst Ralph Mathekga warned yesterday.

Mabe told delegates at the Black Business Council summit last week that the funding gap for emerging enterprises could be filled by pensions – an idea Mathekga has likened to “throwing hard savings of workers into a bottomless pit”.

While government has pledged to support the SMME sector, late payments to service providers for work rendered has led to many struggling businesses closing down.

“The last thing the government can do is to risk the future of workers by experimenting with their hard-earned pensions. “Looking at the financial mismanagement of state-owned enterprises [SOEs], we have seen how public money has continued to go down the drain.

“If the idea of using pensions to fund SMMEs flies, that certainly means risking workers’ money towards ventures with returns that are questionable,” said Mathekga.

Mathekga said he was surprised by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) backlash in response to Mabe’s proposal.

“Cosatu was initially the one that mooted the idea of using pensions to fund the financially ailing Eskom,” added Mathekga. In an ironic twist, Cosatu has rejected Mabe’s proposal of using pensions to fund the SMME sector.

Said Cosatu spokesman Sizwe Pamla: “Cosatu outrightly rejects the suggestion by the ANC national spokesman Pule Mabe for pensions to be used to close the funding gap of SMMEs.

“While we agree that SMMEs need to get special attention, we do not think that pensions are the solution.

“Pensions remain workers’ deferred wages and should be invested in ways that benefit them and should not be used to deal with policy failures.

“The reality is that the National Development Plan vision 2030 that was rammed through by the ANC government in 2012 identified the SMMEs as an engine for economic growth and employment creation, but since then nothing drastic has been done to support them.

“Economic programmes reflect the dominant political forces within the government and the implementation of conservative economic policies favouring the moneyed class at the expense of the SMMEs and the working class.

“The ANC at national level recently endorsed one of the most anti-worker budgets that gave nothing to the SMMEs and the survivalist rural and township economy that feeds and clothes many people in this country.

“Since the ANC sees nothing wrong with a budget that pickpockets workers and reduces their salaries, benefits and pensions, it is surprising, therefore, to see the same ANC talking about using the same workers’ pensions to prop up the SMME sector,” argued Pamla.

The ANC, he said, “should do some introspection and then spend more energy contesting the conservative policies of its own government, instead of trying to hide behind workers’ pensions”.

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