Editor’s Thoughts.

The big news today is the unemployment stats released by StatsSA yesterday. The team at Alexforbes summarise the key highlights of Statistician-General, Risenga Maluleke’s announcement yesterday. There’s a cautious (there’s that word again) nod to an overall trend of our unemployment rate is beginning to show signs of decline, but the SG was careful to say that “while the official unemployment rate dipped slightly, the number of people discouraged from looking for work has increased.”

This ties in with the President’s mention in his SONA last week of the expanding of the Social Relief of Distress grant (that’s the old COVID relief grant) – with the intention to “redesign the grant to more effectively support livelihoods, skills development, work opportunities and productive activity.” Some people are calling it the “Job Seekers grant” – which is language that I think sets the right narrative.

This is one of the issues that many are expecting to be dealt with in next week’s budget. And in today’s news we see PwC and Citadel weighing with their thoughts for BS 2026.

On EBnet.Stream today, I chat to Elio E’silva (Alexforbes) on the suggestion that management committees or joint forums in umbrella funds may be considered as Key Persons under COFI (the Conduct of Financial Institutions Bill). Now this is potentially a key change to what many manco’s (myself included) might believe their responsibility (and liability) to be. At the risk of putting a prediction out there to be proved wrong at some future date: my personal belief is that the responsibility and influence of the manco in umbrella funds is expanding – not only through the legislative framework but also through the expectations of the ultimate customer in this value chain – the fund member.

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