More amendments to Pension Funds Bill

CAPE TOWN - The Pension Funds Amendment Bill has not been given the thumbs up by Parliament after more amendments were introduced by the National Council of Provinces (NCOP).

The National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Finance was supposed to consider changes made by the NCOP's select committee on finance to change certain definitions in the bill.

Once finalised The Pension Funds Amendment Bill will introduce a two-pot retirement system allowing members to access their savings before retirement.

Parliament continues to run out of time to finalise the much-talked about bill with MPs delaying adopting the bill again on Friday.

It was amended by the NCOP which had to send the bill back to the National Assembly's finance committee to consider the changes.

Some of the amendments were around taking into account the Divorce Act and other regulations on loans.

National Treasury official Nomalizo Bulisile said that, "there was a decision by Treasury that employers are not permitted to issue loans and therefore we had to delete references to employer loans in the bill."

But Democratic Alliance (DA) MP Dion George questioned whether the new changes from bills returning from the NCOP would require another public participation process.

The committee in the end decided to consider the bill on Monday where a decision will be taken whether to accept the NCOP’s amendments.