South Africa Plans Limited Early Access to Retirement Funds
- Reforms are mainly aimed at encouraging savings, Treasury says
- Tax rules may be tweaked to discourage early withdrawals
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A planned overhaul of South Africa’s retirement-fund rules is primarily aimed at encouraging people to save more and will provide very limited scope for them to access their pensions early, a senior National Treasury official said.
The reforms have been on the agenda for almost a decade, but gained momentum after the coronavirus pandemic upended the economy and pushed the unemployment rate to a record high. That’s led to mounting calls on the government to make retirement provisions more readily accessible -- a step that could have dire socio-economic consequences if mishandled and pensions are frittered away.