Thread by @PRDG_ZA

1/@GovernmentZA @TreasuryZA @ReserveBankSA @CyrilRamaphosa

The latest Sanlam Benchmark survey is a brutal verdict on your governance. South Africans know they must save for retirement — they say planning should start at 35.

But your policies make it nearly impossible. High taxes, capital traps, and economic mismanagement are forcing people to raid tomorrow’s money just to survive today.

Reference: dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-0…

Thread 🧵

2/Per the 2026 Sanlam survey:
Retirement fund engagement only starts 3.4 years before people stop working.

Financial advice sought just 20 months before retirement.

Retirement lump sums now depleted in 14.6 months on average (down from 30 months previously).
47% of pensioners carry debt into retirement.

1 in 3 retirees face financial strain within 4–5 years.

This isn’t “poor financial literacy.” This is what happens when government takes too much and delivers too little.

3/ 50% of respondents gambled in the last 3 months — funded by salaries. 38% say they gamble to generate “additional income.” 44% of younger workers already raided their two-pot savings — overwhelmingly to settle debt, not for luxuries.

@EnochGodongwana, your two-pot “reform” has become an emergency escape hatch from the debt trap you helped create. People aren’t choosing short-term over long-term. They’re choosing survival.

4/And now the draft Capital Flow Management Regulations 2026. You call it modernisation of the old exchange controls.

We call it what it is: tighter chains on private property.

Crypto dragged into the approval regime. New notification and reporting burdens. Higher penalties. More permission slips required to move your own money out of a system plagued by crime, policy chaos, and currency erosion.

This isn’t capital flow management — it’s capital flow imprisonment.

5/You tax productive South Africans up to 45% marginal rate. A tiny minority carries the overwhelming burden while the tax base shrinks.

Tax Freedom Day lands in May — meaning citizens work over four months a year just to fund government before they keep anything for themselves.

Then come VAT, fuel levies, sin taxes, and every other stealth extraction. What’s left for debt repayment, medical cover, or actual retirement savings?

Your confiscatory tax regime is the primary reason people are broke.

6/Instead of fixing the real problems — collapsing public healthcare (forcing people onto expensive private cover), chronic unemployment, crime-driven “black tax,” and unreliable services — you respond with more controls and more taxes.

You lecture citizens about saving while your spending, cadre deployment, incompetent public investment corporation and regulatory hostility destroy the conditions for wealth creation. Then you act surprised when lump sums vanish in a year and pensioners downgrade medical aid or rely on the state you broke.

7/Property rights are not a privilege granted by the state. They are the right to keep the fruits of your labour, to invest them where you choose, and to protect them from devaluation and predation.

The draft Capital Flow Management Regulations prove you do not respect that right.

You treat South Africans’ savings and property as state-adjacent resources to be monitored, approved, penalised, seized, and trapped inside borders that many would rather flee — economically or physically.

8/You are not helping citizens build security.

You are actively undermining it.

High taxes shrink disposable income. Capital controls prevent diversification and hedging. Poor governance inflates the cost of living and destroys hope.

The result? A population that wants to save but is systematically blocked from doing so — then shamed for “gambling” or “early withdrawals” when desperation hits.

9/The Property Rights Defense Group is clear:
Stop eroding citizens' property rights.

Scrap or radically liberalise the capital flow regime — let people move and protect their own capital freely.

Secure property rights instead of regulating them into oblivion. Cut waste, deliver basic services, and create an environment where saving is actually possible — not a luxury reserved for those who can navigate your permission slips.

10/South Africans aren’t failing at retirement planning.

Your government is failing them — by taxing too much, controlling too tightly, and doing far too little to make prosperity achievable.

The survey doesn’t just reveal a savings crisis.

It reveals a governance crisis.

Like and repost if you’re tired of working half the year for the state while your future gets regulated and raided and most likely confiscated through the draft Capital Flow Management Regulations.

Submit your comments before the 30th June:
propertyrightsdefense.org/get-involved/

#PropertyRightsDefense