Namibian government’s sneaky trick to tap local retirement funds

namibia’s budget speech to its parliament is nearing, and the question is how finance minister Calle Schlettwein is going to fund the mineral-rich country’s state spending after pension funds were indirectly used last year.

The nation of less than 3m people relies heavily on developmental aid from South Africa – in the form of customs revenue sharing – to fund its public outlays. Namibia, however, has a large pool of investment money relative to its economic output.

It was this segment that the country’s finance ministry targeted last year and the year before. In a similar vein to SA, Namibia’s retirement fund industry is forced to buy a certain amount of “domestic assets”, or local assets – be they shares or bonds.