As financial scandals unfold, trust in advisers and institutions is crumbling. Illustrative image: (Generated with Google Gemini Flash Image 2.5) From time to time I look at the state of my finances and do the usual thing that someone at my stage of life (early middle age) does. With a sigh, I ask my wife: Do you think this is all going to work?
When I look back on the bigger financial decisions we have made, generally about houses and cars, the older we’ve got the more thought we’ve put into them.
But the real question you ask when you make a financial decision is: Who can you trust?
It’s entirely likely that, if you’re lucky enough to have a financial adviser, you probably came across them through some kind of personal recommendation. Perhaps it came from a friend, or it is someone you knew socially or there was that time with that thing in that place and we’ll never forget it.
When I was younger I was lucky enough to have a couple of older people in my life who I could trust when I was making big decisions.
Thank goodness.
Because when I look around now I find there is just so much that is falling apart because of the behaviour of people I cannot trust.
Today’s board meeting at the Public Investment Corporation was called mainly because of a lack of trust.
Deputy Finance Minister David Masondo resigned late on Thursday after a huge-falling out among the board and the CEO, Patrick Dlamini (the Sunday Times) suggested he may even have been told by President Cyril Ramaphosa that he would be fired as deputy finance minister if he didn’t just go).
Can you imagine having your pension money with the PIC and not knowing if you could trust the people running it? (The only reason we don’t have protests in the streets over the PIC is that it is a defined benefit fund – if it went bust, which is actually impossible right now, the government would pay the pensions).
Overnight the President accepted the request by the head of the National Prosecuting Authority’s Independent Directorate Against Corruption, Andrea Johnson, to resign. Like Masondo, I felt she had no option.
I can’t tell you how personally disappointed I feel in her. She was supposed to be a person we could trust. And there she was charging Dineo Mokwele for applying for a job she was perfectly qualified for.
On Sunday it was confirmed that Makhudu Sefara has been cleared by the Sunday Times to resume his job as editor.
That’s after the Special Investigating Unit claimed he had benefited from money stolen by the National Lotteries Commission.
While I have no idea about the inner workings of the case, it seems amazing that the SIU just ignored what Sefara told them. An independent investigation by Werksmans described the SIU as “dismissive” towards what he told them. Essentially, he was given a contract to provide training to journalists. Along with that came a budget. And from everything I can see, that’s what he did with the money. He trained journalists.
And yet the SIU emblazoned his name and image in their statements on the matter.
What does that mean for their other investigations?
Yesterday I discovered a person I had trusted to give advice on personal finance issues on the radio is facing criminal charges relating to fraud.
I’ve have not met Eunice Sibiya, but I feel I know her. I have spoken to her on SAfm and The Money Show, and we would WhatsApp each other, as professional colleagues are wont to do. She was someone I thought I could trust to give advice to our audience.
I can’t quite believe it. Maybe there is some awful mix-up, but I’m afraid it would be irrational to believe that. Banks like FNB tend to know what they’re doing and don’t generally go to the police if they aren’t both sure and really aggrieved.
Unfortunately, so many of the institutions that we are supposed to trust are becoming hopelessly politicised.
When Joe Biden was US president regulators there were very wary of crypto assets. Now, under Donald Trump things have changed completely and the Securities and Exchange Commission has basically made it easier than ever to buy, sell and trade crypto assets.
You will be un-amazed to hear that one of the people benefiting the most from all of this is Trump himself.
What is going to happen when people realise they’ve been screwed? Do you think they’re just going to sit there and take it? Perhaps. But I don’t know that I would.
Perhaps my stage in life should not be classed as (early!) middle age.
Perhaps it should be defined as “mid-life cynicism”. That stage of life when you sigh, look at your spouse and ask: is there really anyone, anywhere, we can trust? DM