MPs’ pension fund must come clean about investments in fossil fuel companies

South African members of Parliament (MPs) are tasked with legislating for a sustainable future. But what if their own pensions are invested in the very fossil fuel companies driving the climate crisis?

In November 2024, delegates from around the world convened at COP29 in Azerbaijan to discuss strategies for addressing the climate crisis. At the same time, outside our Parliament, a group of activists from Fossil Free South Africa (FFSA) gathered to highlight the impacts of climate change — which disproportionately affects Africa — and emphasise how divestment from fossil fuel companies can play a role in curbing those impacts.

Before that gathering, FFSA, an NGO that advocates for an end to the destruction caused by the fossil fuel industry, sent correspondence to the Political Office-Bearers Pension Fund (POBPF) asking for information on how the fund addresses climate risks and the extent of its fossil fuel investments.

FFSA also asked whether the fund invested in South African companies exporting coal to Israel, and whether it had examined the extent to which its offshore assets may be invested in companies listed by the United Nations as implicated in the genocide in Gaza.

Paia request for information

FFSA was promised an answer to these questions. However, when its members and other climate activists gathered outside Parliament in November 2024, they were informed that the fund would not address the queries until its board of trustees decided whether the information could be released. Ultimately, the fund, chaired by ANC MP Kgomotso Ramolobeng, declined to share its answers.

In early 2025, FFSA, together with Open Secrets, an NGO that exposes and builds accountability for private sector economic crimes, submitted a Promotion of Access to Information Act (Paia) request for information about all the companies in which the fund is invested. Under Paia, the fund is required to give clear reasons for any refusal to provide the information.

However, on 22 June, the fund’s attorneys (and not their information officer as required by Paia) refused to respond.

Complaint with Information Regulator

In light of this, FFSA and Open Secrets have lodged a complaint against the fund with the Information Regulator, requesting that it direct the fund to provide the information we seek.

The fund is legally a private entity, but its business is the management of pension funds for MPs, whose state-funded pension benefits are separate from those of all other state employees, whose pensions are invested in the Government Employees Pension Fund.

Conflict of interest

FFSA and Open Secrets have identified a worrying conflict of interest: MPs — whose function is to legislate on South Africa’s climate change response, including giving effect to the objectives it agrees to at COP — have pensions tied up in the very companies responsible for the climate crisis, namely fossil fuel companies.

The duty of MPs to serve South Africa’s best interests — and therefore to legislate towards a sustainable future — gives them heightened responsibilities in this regard.

South Africa’s approach to mitigating climate change in terms of the Just Energy Transition Investment Plan requires billions of rands and “increasing pressure on disinvestment in fossil fuels”, according to the Presidential Climate Commission.

If the MPs’ retirement fund is dependent on the continuing profitability of fossil fuel companies, then not only are those MPs tying their financial future to that of those companies, but they are failing in their constitutional duty to legislate for a sustainable future.

This is especially poignant in light of the recent International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion on the states’ obligations in respect of climate change. The ICJ clarified that under customary international law, all states, including South Africa, are obliged to prevent harm to the environment and exercise due diligence as well as to take measures to regulate private actors whose conduct affects the environment.

Commitment to ‘transparency’

The POBPF’s declared investment strategy includes an explicit ethical commitment: “The Fund’s investments should be managed in a manner that is honest, transparent and ethical.” As things stand, it seems that MPs do indeed benefit to some degree from investments in the fossil fuel industry, one whose emissions and pollution costs South Africa more than R500-billion annually.

In FFSA’s earlier correspondence with the fund, the fund confirmed that some information related to its investments was already in the public domain — its investments in extractive companies such as Glencore, Exxaro and Sasol are listed in its 2024 financial report — which is in direct contrast to the constitutional duty highlighted above.

The investment in Glencore is significant: the company exports coal to Israel, undermining the South African government’s condemnation of Israeli genocide.

We are hopeful that the Information Regulator recognises that MPs serve a public duty, and that their financial investments are of legitimate public interest.

MPs must demonstrate leadership

FFSA and Open Secrets maintain that South Africans have a right to know whether our MPs are investing in companies that actively destroy our chance for a sustainable future, which is the basis for our complaint with the Information Regulator.

If upheld, our complaint would require the fund to make its investment choices clear.

South Africa is at a crossroads. The billions we commit today will determine whether we transition fairly to renewable energy or remain shackled to a dying fossil fuel economy. MPs must demonstrate leadership — not by profiting from polluters, but by aligning their financial interests with the sustainable future they are elected to deliver.

It is time for Parliament’s pension fund to open its books and live up to its claims of commitment to the values of “transparency, integrity, good governance [and] fairness”.

Secrecy serves no one except those who benefit from the destruction of our planet. South Africans deserve better. DM

Luthando Vilakazi is a lawyer at Open Secrets. David Le Page is the director of Fossil Free South Africa.