Dear Member,

Here are some of the thoughts and reflections that are informing the NFMW Board of Trustees’ decisions.

A pension fund (or retirement savings through a pension fund) cannot be viewed in isolation from the member’s life. Holistic financial planning for individual fund members includes, but is not limited to:

• estate planning
• personal budgeting
• personal savings
• planning for emergencies, and
• tax planning.

These are critical in the preparation (financial, psychological and otherwise) of a fund member for retirement. The narrow view that many in South Africa and the world over have of retirement savings/planning, is contradictory to achieving the purpose for which pension funds exist, which is generally to serve to assist members to retire comfortably.

We asked ourselves as the Board the question “What if we shift our focus from what the law explicitly expresses to create solutions, to what the law does not prohibit, which enables you to achieve the intention of the law?”

For many years, some industry surveys have indicated that only 6% of members of retirement funds in South Africa will retire financially secure. In the same vein, the retirement funds industry and relevant stakeholders did not do much, if anything, to address this challenge that has been highlighted from conference to conference and from year to year. The reason for this, we believe, is that many of those persons occupying offices that are entrusted to impact lives, are narrow-minded, interpret law literally rather than considering its spirit, and lack the relevant extent of strategic and critical thinking required to build solutions.

At the NFMW, we have created and are creating sustainable solutions for our members - including addressing this “6%” challenge!

Mr Leslie Ndawana
Principal Executive Officer.