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Time-wasting. Fobbing off. Procrastination. It’s what people in authority often do when they don’t want to face up to reality or to answer difficult questions.
We’ve had a fair dose of it over the past week with the fiasco of the Jacob Zuma “transition”, culminating in the confusing pantomime performance last Tuesday by ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule.
But it’s par for the course in so much of government. During the same week, for example, the finance ministry under Malusi Gigaba was playing exactly the same sort of delaying game, fobbing off legitimate requests for information from the Public Servants’ Association (PSA).
Ever since September last year, the PSA has been asking to meet with the minister, who is the sole shareholder in the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) that manages the nearly R2 trillion of the Government Employees’ Pension Fund (GEPF).
The union wants “full disclosure” about appointments to the PIC board, on which the union also wants worker representation.
After months of being ignored, the PSA decided this month to go to court.
Within hours of this announcement being made, Gigaba agreed to a meeting, scheduled for 11.30am on Monday morning this week.
Then the meeting was cancelled and another offered on March 2. After nearly six months of delaying tactics, the PSA accepted the date — but is going ahead with the legal process “because who knows if that will happen”.
In a separate Promotion of Access to Information action, the union has given the PIC until tomorrow to provide all the details of its investment decisions, especially investments in “unlisted entities”.
A battle has been joined. And the determination and anger underlying it is understandable since the whole issue revolves around pension funds. It is probably true that the easiest way for a government or private sector employer to pick a fight with workers is to be seen to interfere with pensions.
Because the incredible wealth in pension funds comes from the deferred wages of workers; savings relied on for the time beyond work. But, increasingly, such funds are becoming subject to the vagaries of the stock market, their payouts no longer guaranteed.
In South Africa, the PIC-managed GEPF is a defined benefit fund. This means that workers know exactly how much they will receive when they retire, guaranteed by government.
But pension funds are invested in shares, bonds and other entities with the object of maximising the returns to the fund and, therefore, to the beneficiaries. However, markets are volatile and there can be considerable losses, such as the recent collapse of the Steinhoff share price that cost the GEPF billions of rand.
This puts strain on governments that are under pressure to cut costs while often casting greedy eyes on the retirement money of their employees. It is this that raises the ire of workers, even in sectors that have no reputation for militancy.
A classic case came in a recent strike ballot among some of Britain’s most hallowed and best-known universities. Despite balloting laws aimed to undermine union action, all but seven of the 68 universities polled met the legal threshold of a 50% turnout.
The result nationally was overwhelmingly for strike action and a series of rolling mass action strikes is scheduled to begin next Thursday.
This because of a government move to downgrade a defined benefit pension fund. Student unions have also backed their teachers. There are similarly strong feelings among government employees on the domestic front where the demand is for accountability, transparency and oversight.
It is something to which the government would do well to pay heed.
