Abstract
South Africa's gross national savings is mainly dependent on saving by the corporate
sector owing to government being at a budget deficit and household saving ratio to GDP
being dismal at 0.4 percent as at July 2018. The Financial Services Board Financial
Literacy Report has suggested that the dismal household savings is due to financial
illiteracy and lack of awareness of savings products, among other factors. To alleviate this
issue non-profit professional bodies such as the Financial Planning Institute of Southern
Africa have introduced financial education programmes. In the mining sector the Minerals
Council South Africa has identified financial illiteracy and poor saving behaviour as being
one of the reasons why 6.5 – 14 percent of mineworkers have emolument attachment
orders against their salaries. Through a pre-post design this technical research project
studied the Welkom mineworkers’ perceptions of saving after completing the FPI’s
MyMoney123TM financial education programme. The results indicated that the majority of
mineworkers were likely to save more or differently and apply the principles learned more
often. However, a majority of mineworkers also indicated that they did not feel empowered
to manage their finances after participating in the financial education programme. The
findings of the study were limited in that a convenience sampling technique was used and
thus the results could not be generalised to other industries or areas.
M.Com. (Local Economic Development)