'Squirrel money away'

Mon, 07 Jul 2008

In an effort to make better savers of the next generation, financial specialists will preach its importance in 90 schools countrywide later this month, the launch of Savings Month 2008 heard in Johannesburg on Friday.

The campaign, driven by the South African Savings Institute (SASI) is one of three such pilot projects following a campaign in the United States.

Similar pilot projects are scheduled to take place in Turkey and Mexico.

"We shall talk about how consistent saving can help them achieve their plans," Cas Coovadia, managing director of the Banking Association of South Africa and a partner in the campaign, told the launch in Sandton.

"How, if they have savings they will have the power to make choices; how it puts their own destinies into their own hands."

SASI chairman Elias Masilela said peer pressure was a significant variable, with education and income levels, that influenced saving in South Africa.

"People compete, not on the amount of savings and retirement annuities they have, but rather on what cars they drive, what restaurants they visit and what clothes they wear," he said.

"What we would like to do is to change that psyche. Students should be competing on the rate at which their piggy banks are filled."

The campaign aimed to reach 10 000 children between Grade Four and Grade Nine and would start in the next school term, on 25 July.

Other partners in the campaign were the National Treasury, the National Department of Education, the Association of Collective Investments and the KwaZulu-Natal department of economic development.

"This partnership is extremely important in inculcating the importance of savings amongst the youth of South Africa," Masilela said.

"They need to understand this importance, not only for the short term, but also for the long term. They need to understand their role in delivering on sustainable growth.

"A failure to achieve this goal will be a serious indictment on our generation, and we shall not be able to reverse the poor saving performance that we are faced with."