MICHAEL AVERY: Two-pot system is a start to addressing ...

The two-pot system kicks off on Monday in earnest. I’m sure many funds will be ready for the deluge of members — hardworking South Africans who have been subject to hard times thanks to successive ANC governments’ spectacular mismanagement of the economy and a global inflationary crisis — looking for some respite from the hard knocks. Some funds won’t. Especially, I’m told, the security industry fund.

Some of the windfall will go to conspicuous consumption. Some will go to paying down debt to escape the crushing usurious vice of the mashonisas. Much of that is short-term noise. The long-term impact of this overdue reform of our retirement system is arguably as big, if not bigger, than the shift from defined benefit to defined contribution funds. Let me explain...