Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant has dismissed suggestions that her department is sitting on billions of rand from the worker funds without making an effort to invest them.
Tabling her budget speech in Parliament, Oliphant confirmed that the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) accumulated a surplus of R130 billion and the Compensation Fund R57bn at the end of February. “We must congratulate the funds for a job well done.
“But, let us set the record straight: these two funds are not sitting on this money and it is not correct that this money is not being invested in the economy.”
She insisted that the money in the UIF and Compensation Fund were invested with the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) in its capacity as the government funds’ asset manager.
“There is no 'bank vault' at the Department of Labour, and/or the funds where this money is kept.”
She went to great lengths to explain how the money from the funds were invested in various portfolios by the PIC.
Oliphant even suggested that the reason there was no load shedding was probably because part of the workers’ funds were invested in Eskom's infrastructure development programme.