After hounding out the whistleblower who exposed Liberty Life’s disastrous pension fund cancellations programme, the insurer has sat on its hands. It is extraordinary to see how pension industry insiders leap to defend insurance behemoth Liberty Life for its scandalous handling of the unlawful cancellation of hundreds of pension funds. A recent investigative report by…
Unaccountable 0004: Rheinmetall Denel Munition: Murder and mayhem in Yemen By Zen Mathe & Caryn Dolley Companies with South African links have been allowed to supply Saudi Arabia and its allies with weapons — despite the humanitarian destruction the war in Yemen has wrought. Yemen is at the epicentre of a regionalised civil war. Over…
GroundUp | Ciaran Ryan | 16 January 2019 | “This may seem small compared to the billions of unclaimed assets, but it is always nice to see a direct impact” It’s nice to share good news every now and again. Late last year we published two stories (here and here) on R42 billion in unclaimed pensions owed…
Unaccountable 00003: Captured Regulator?- The FSCA and Dube Tshidi By Michael Marchant Open Secrets | Daily Maverick | 3 December 2019 In part two of the Open Secrets Unaccountable series, we profiled the conduct of Liberty Group in the incorrect cancellation of hundreds of pension funds when they still held more than R100 million owed…
Christi Nortier | Maverick Citizen | 29 November 2019 | Every Friday for the past decade, Sphiwo William Casiwe has made his way from his home in Khayelitsha to the local activist hub, the Isivivana Centre, for a meeting with fellow ex-mineworkers. He clutches his satchel as he hails taxis and navigates pavements. He rests…
Unaccountable 00002: Liberty- Profit over Pensioners By Michael Marchant More than 16 million South Africans contribute to a pension fund, most of which are run by financial behemoths like Liberty. They do so in the hope of a decent dignified life in retirement, and to ensure their dependants will be paid if they die. While…
Ciaran Ryan | GroundUp | 26 November 2019 R19 billion owed to beneficiaries in metal industry More than half the unclaimed benefits of R42 billion owed to roughly 4.2 million former workers are bottled up in just two trade union-affiliated pension schemes. This is one of the findings in a recent report into unclaimed benefits…
Black Sash’s Khuluma on the 21st November 2019 was a conversation with Valencia Talene (Corruption Watch), Tracy Ledger (Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI) and Naushina Rahim (Open Secrets), where they discussed State Capture: Implications for governance and leadership of the SCA ruling ordering Cash Paymaster Services to pay back 316 million to SASSA.
Unaccountable 00001: Dame Margaret Hodge MP – a very British apartheid profiteer By Open Secrets Open Secrets | Daily Maverick | 20 November 2019 Margaret Hodge has clothed herself in the claim that she has dedicated her life to fighting racism – that her very ‘being’ was anti-racist, as she said in March 2019. The…
Ciaran Ryan | GroundUp | 19 November 2019 | A campaign to reclaim billions of rands in unclaimed benefits is about to kick into high gear. The Unclaimed Benefits Committee (UBC), representing a group of claimants, and non-profit organisation Open Secrets, are planning to lobby Parliament. “We will also be calling for a boycott of…
