The ANC is looking at the possibility of using private and public pension funds to rescue the country’s struggling state-owned enterprises.<\/p>\n
In an interview with the Sunday Times<\/a><\/strong> Enoch Godongwana, head of the party\u2019s economic transformation subcommittee, said that the asset management industry currently has R6 trillion under management which should be borrowed by government.<\/p>\n Godongwana said using this approach to gather funds is better than going the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout.<\/p>\n “Why would you go to the IMF and the World Bank and go and raise money when we have sufficient savings in the economy which you can borrow, probably far cheaper, and probably with little exchange rate risk?”<\/p>\n Godongwana added that while the ANC is also currently investigating the use of prescribed assets, this is separate from raising money through pension funds.<\/p>\n “Borrowing from domestic markets is not prescribed assets, that is a separate investigation,” he said.<\/p>\n On Thursday (15 August) the IMF stated that South Africa has not asked for its assistance, adding that it did not need a loan, currently.<\/p>\n The IMF doesn\u2019t see a balance-of-payments problem in South Africa, which means there\u2019s no need for IMF support, Montfort Mlachila said at a conference hosted by the Bureau for Economic Research in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n \u201cTo tell you the truth we – by ‘we’ I mean the institution – much prefer the countries to resolve their own problems and I\u2019ve no doubt that South Africa has the capacity to address its own problems in the various areas, especially on the growth front, as well as on the fiscal front,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n