By Open Secrets and Black Sash

Published in the Daily Maverick

With a reputation of being incapable of managing the technical constraints of its internal systems, it must be questioned why the South African Social Security Agency and the South African Post Office would make Postbank the preferred partner to take over the administration of social grant payments.

Postbank’s technical ‘glitches’ are nothing new

Postbank officially took over the social grants payment system from Sapo on 31 October 2022 and its system immediately experienced technical failures that disrupted grant payments.

In December 2022, Postbank announced that ATM use for the Postbank/Sassa gold card had been suspended for December and that beneficiaries using these cards should collect their grants at retail stores. The reason given was the uncovering of attacks on the Postbank system by criminal elements “determined to commit systematic ATM card fraud-related crimes on Postbank payments” which required further investigation. Many retail stores ran out of cash, leaving beneficiaries unpaid.

PostBank had an emergency meeting with Sassa in December 2022 in an effort to resolve the issues, but the Postbank CEO was noticeably absent from the meeting, since he was on leave in a time of a crisis.

Postbank explained the suspension of ATM use as risk mitigation against fraud. Despite Postbank’s undertaking to inform stakeholders upfront of any action taken, Postbank was noticeably quiet in the media regarding the challenges with grant payments which continued in January 2023.

Despite the promise that these issues would be resolved in December, Postbank faced similar problems in January 2023, with recipients not being able to access their grants. All of this indicates that Postbank was ill-prepared to take on the responsibility of managing social grant payments. Yet, such issues have been persistent throughout the state entity’s existence.

In November 2022, the Mail & Guardian reported that Postbank’s irregular expenditure had risen by R118-million and that it had not reached its 2021-22 target of acquiring a commercial banking licence. Senior manager at the Auditor-General of South Africa, Joyce Nkonyane, told Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Communication that the inappropriate spending came from various contracts.

The article reported that one of the major irregularities was that Postbank failed to safeguard the issuing of bank cards for its client, Sassa, which resulted in the loss of R68.8-million in cards that were not accounted for. These Postbank cards were meant for Sassa grant recipients who used Postbank accounts for their grant payments.

Additionally, Postbank’s failure to protect its internal systems and manage the cards led to stolen Sassa cards being used to commit fraud amounting to R13.6-million.

Moreover, in March 2022, Postbank confirmed that a cybercrime attack had resulted in a financial loss of about R90-million, though it claimed no customers had been affected by the loss.

AmaBhungane reported that “between 16 and 28 October last year (2021) individuals presumed to be either employed by Postbank or by a Postbank contractor stole at least R89,459,330 in physical cash through Sassa accounts. The brazen fraud involved illicitly crediting grant beneficiary accounts with large sums and then emptying these accounts out at ATMs.”

It was not the first time Postbank had suffered a cybercrime attack. In 2012, a hacker stole R42-million from the state entity when an employee’s computer was used to transfer money from the bank’s main server.

There have also been technical glitches within the Postbank system leaving recipients of the R350 Social Relief of Distress grant unable to get their grants. This problem was eventually resolved, but it highlighted concerns about Postbank’s ability to maintain adequate protections in its internal digital systems.

There has been little accountability for any of these issues, with the Auditor-General telling Parliament that it had noted a clear “failure of having enough consequence management efforts and no internal process established to deal with consequence management”.

What next to protect grant recipients?

With a reputation of being incapable of managing the technical constraints of its internal systems, it must be questioned why Sassa and Sapo would deem Postbank the preferred partner to take over the administration of social grant payments.

It has become evident over the past three months that Postbank may not be suitable to maintain the critical responsibility of making grant payments. It certainly raises even greater concern about the secretive nature of and lack of public engagement on the decision.

If Postbank is to remain Sassa’s preferred partner, then questions need to be raised as to how and when Postbank will address its internal control failures and fraud problem. Sassa, Sapo and Postbank must also be more transparent on the details and implications of Sapo ceding its responsibilities to Postbank. The public needs urgent answers to the following:

• What informed the decision to cede Sassa’s contract with Sapo to Postbank?
• Why was no notice of the proposed cession given to the public, particularly social grant beneficiaries?
• Why were beneficiaries not kept updated about the reasons for the delays in payments and how Postbank planned to address the issues?
• Given the experiences of grant beneficiaries over the past three months, is Sassa and the minister of social development satisfied that Postbank is able to fulfil the functions required of it in terms of this agreement?
• What measures have Sassa and the Postbank taken to protect grant beneficiaries from the effects of Postbank’s lack of expertise and capacity to fulfil the obligations to administer and pay the grants?; and
• What oversight mechanisms are currently in place between the Department of Social Development, Sassa and Postbank to ensure the efficient payment of social grants?

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Open Secrets’ Head of Investigations, Michael Marchant speaks to Sakina Kamwendo about the nearly R50 billion in Unpaid Pensions that belong to almost 5 million people in Southern Africa and the ways in which this deepening injustice can be addressed.

The post WATCH| Five million people owed R47 billion in unpaid funds appeared first on Open Secrets.

Nearly R50 billion. That is how much greedy and negligent pension funds and pension fund administrators owe to almost 5 million people in Southern Africa in unpaid pensions.

Isaac Thokoane, one of the millions affected by this injustice, explained his pain about the failure to pay out pension benefits.

“I am angry and sad at the same time… you can’t expect a person like my father — or the rest of the people owed pension benefits — to work for so many years and then be deprived of access to their entitled benefits. It doesn’t make sense”, said Isaac speaking to the Daily Maverick.

While many elderly pensioners and their families continue to suffer without the pension benefits owed to them, fund administrators, asset managers, and other financial actors rake in fees, profiting from this great injustice. Pension fund administrators have tried to absolve themselves of responsibility by calling them unclaimed pensions. But this is an inaccurate description.

Administrators must take responsibility

“The administrators like to use the word unclaimed because they want to blame people but, as we know, many people have been trying to claim for years and still have not been paid,” said Dale McKinley, a steering committee member of the Unpaid Benefits Campaign (UBC).

“We say unpaid because when we say unclaimed, it puts too much responsibility on the victims of this injustice,” said our Head of Campaigns, Mamello Mosiana.

Mamello spoke to SAFM about the People’s Hearing on Unpaid Pension Benefits held at the Women’s Jail at Constitutional Hill last week. The People’s Hearing was organized by Open Secrets together with the UBC on the 13th of September.

Thomas Malokotsa, steering committee member of UBC spoke to ENCA about the failure of administrators to pay the claims to these pensions. Malokotsa explained that the UBC had been inundated with pensioners requesting assistance in getting their benefits paid out.

Malokotsa told ENCA’s Masego Rahlaga, “We are hoping to have all the pension administrators and the regulator (Financial Sector Conduct Authority) to sit and listen to the grievances of the people affected by this negligence.”

Victory towards justice for unpaid benefits

Open Secrets and the UBC had been agitating the FSCA to act against the unlawful “Cancellations Project” for four years. Effectively, the Financial Services Board (now FSCA), allowed pension fund administrators to cancel the registrations of thousands of pension funds when those funds still had money that was owed to beneficiaries. The cancellations project, we have argued, is one example of how the industry has been structured to benefit its dominant corporations while leaving pensioners and pension fund members in the dark.

Disappointed with the snail’s pace taken by the FSCA in tackling the unlawfully cancelled pensions, Open Secrets and UBC (represented by the Centre for Applied Legal Studies), launched an application in the Gauteng High Court to compel the FSCA to address the unlawful cancellation of pension funds swiftly, and to do so in an open and transparent way.

We are proud and disappointed to say that in the seven months since we launched the case, the FSCA did more than it had done in ten years to address the cancellation of pensions. Recognizing the progress made by the regulator in fulfilling its duties, we have now reached a settlement agreement with the FSCA.

Holding parliament accountable for unpaid pensions

The People’s Hearing was chaired by a panel including Amanda Rinquest (Black Sash), Shaeera Kalla (Activist), and Advocate Geoff Budlender SC. They led the hearings creating a space for affected parties like Thokoane to share their stories of how the injustice of unpaid pensions impacted their lives.

The panel made the following recommendations:

• The parliamentary portfolio committee on finance chairperson Mr Maswanganyi must invite Open Secrets, the Unpaid Benefits Campaign and Rosemary Hunter to present a way forward to address this national crisis which affects more than 5 million people.
• FSCA should zero rate its website and search engine tool to make it easier for beneficiaries to track their pensions.
• FSCA must fulfil its public duties and penalise fund administrators for non-compliance.
• There must be a serious exploration of psycho-social support for beneficiaries who are exhausted under the weight of this stress, and not being able to support their families and loved ones who have been robbed of the most basic comforts after the exploitation of working their whole lives, sometimes to the point of disability or death.

In solidarity,

Luvo Mnyobe (Campaigner)

The post Newsletter |Holding Parliament Accountable for Unpaid Pensions appeared first on Open Secrets.

Business Day | Mudiwa Gavaza

Mudiwa Gavaza speaks to Tabitha Paine, attorney and acting head of legal at Open Secrets, and Thomas Malokotsa from Unpaid Benefits Campaign

The post PODCAST | The unlawful cancellation of pension funds in SA appeared first on Open Secrets.

Civil Society organisations take Financial Sector Regulator to court

In December 2021, Open Secrets and the Unpaid Benefits Campaign (UBC), represented by the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS), brought an application in the Gauteng High Court against the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA). In the spirit of greater transparency and responsiveness to the plight of pensioners, the application asks the Court to remedy the unlawful cancellation of pension funds. The FSCA has undertaken to file their response to our application by 16 May 2022.

The unlawful cancellation of pension funds saw fund administrators, enabled by the Financial Services Board (the FSCA’s predecessor), deregister thousands of funds, some of which owed pensioners and beneficiaries money. This occurred despite the fact that a deregistered pension fund cannot pay people what is owed to them. In order to remedy this, in 2019 the FSCA published Circular 1/2019, which requires private fund administrators to apply to court to reinstate all funds that were unlawfully cancelled. So far, out of potentially thousands of affected funds, only 48 have been reinstated over a period of more than a decade since their cancellation. Despite the apparent lack of compliance with the Circular, the FSCA has seemingly done little to enforce it.

Our application therefore seeks to ensure that the FSCA enforces its own obligations in an open and transparent manner and with the urgency required. Beneficiaries do not know what is happening and are prevented from accessing their benefits, resulting in financial harm that impacts entire families. The fact of the matter is that we also do not know who the beneficiaries of these cancelled funds are because of the lack of transparency and slow pace of the reinstatement process. What we do know is that there are over 4 million people who are owed their benefits, some of whom could be beneficiaries of unlawfully cancelled pension funds. Each year of delay also means more money accrues to fund administrators and asset managers, who sometimes derive fees from the unpaid benefits.

Through this court case, Open Secrets and the UBC hope that the reinstatements of funds happens expeditiously and transparently. This is the only way that affected beneficiaries will know what is happening to their hard earned pensions, and that the public can be assured that the FSCA is acting independently. We are asking the court to monitor the FSCA’s implementation of Circular 1/2019 to ensure that funds are identified and reinstated as a priority and not merely a relegated “special project”.

The FSCA is the oversight body for the financial sector, and its conduct has far-reaching consequences for all people in South Africa. A central responsibility of the FSCA is to protect the public interest and ensure that everyone is treated fairly by financial sector companies. Given the pervasive role of the financial sector in state capture and corporate fraud, South Africa needs a regulator that will stand up for and serve the public as well as regulate corporations without fear or favour. If it does not do so openly and transparently, as it is legally obliged to, there is no way of knowing what it is doing and whether it is acting in the public interest.

Since 2018, Open Secrets and the UBC have sought to avoid legal action by trying to engage with the FSCA and fund administrators. We published an investigative report –The Bottom Line: Who Profits from Unpaid Pensions? – in 2019, in order to find out what is being done to remedy the situation. We have also written many letters, to which the FSCA has responded by essentially saying that it is engaging in behind closed doors discussions with private fund administrators.

In its last letter to us, the FSCA baldly stated that it is not required to be transparent, as it “is accountable to Parliament and the National Treasury”, in addition to being “accountable before the Judiciary”. While we understand that legislatively, the FSCA is accountable to Parliament and the National Treasury, we strongly maintain that it must be transparent and accountable to the public it serves. Like many others before us, we had hoped there would be no need to approach a court to ensure regulatory and oversight bodies carry out the most democratic of duties.

For media contact:

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Tito Mboweni contends that appointments to statutory or public institutions do not always have to follow a public process.

Open Secrets and the Unpaid Benefits Campaign is set to square off against Finance Minister Tito Mboweni in the High Court in Pretoria today, over how the Financial Services Conduct Authority’s (FSCA) head honchos are appointed.

The financial sector watchdog was launched in April 2018 – and last September, National Treasury finally began the process of appointing a commissioner and four deputies to head it.

The post NPO goes to court to stop state from hiring top FSCA execs ‘secretly’ appeared first on Open Secrets.

Open Secrets and the Unpaid Benefits Campaign (UBC), represented by the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS), have approached the Gauteng High Court to set aside portions of the regulations that were made in terms of section 61(4) of the Financial Sector Regulation Act 9 of 2017 (“the regulations”), relating to the appointment process of the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioners of the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA).

This forms part of ongoing efforts by both organisations to ensure that the FSCA and other key public institutions intended to regulate powerful private sector corporations act in a manner that serves broad the public interest. Leadership appointments are key to achieving this.

The FSCA is the oversight body for the financial sector, which has a duty to act in the public interest, and therefore has far-reaching implications for all people in South Africa. Because of its role in safeguarding the public interest, it is crucial that the appointment process for the leadership of the FSCA is open and transparent, which the Constitution also demands. Given the pervasive role of the financial sector in state capture and corporate fraud,  South Africa needs a regulator that will serve the public and regulate corporations without fear or favour – an appointment process that is transparent and open helps to ensure that this is so. As the Zondo Commission has shown with devastating clarity, we cannot and should not simply trust public officials to act in the public interest, and that secretive appointment processes have catastrophic consequences for people in South Africa and our democracy.

Our application in the High Court seeks a review of the regulations to ensure that they are constitutionally compliant. Open Secrets and the UBC argue that the process as set out in the regulations does not provide for an appointment process that is transparent, open and one that facilitates meaningful public participation. In our application, we ask the court to set aside the regulations in so far as they do not provide for these constitutional requirements. We are not asking for the recent appointments to the FSCA to be set aside, as that process was already hugely delayed by Minister Mboweni despite numerous reminders over two years by our organisations to prioritise this. Instead, we seek a forward-looking decision that declares for all future processes that:

• Meaningful participation is required, which is more than a retrospective ‘tick-box’ exercise. The public must be afforded an opportunity to meaningfully engage and influence decisions.
• Minister Mboweni, though he might not want to engage with the public he serves, must do so as a constitutional check on the exercise of his power as a public official. The public is not passive- we have a voice and Minister Mboweni is constitutionally obliged to listen to us and apply his mind to what we have to say. He cannot delegate or outsource this.

Therefore, Open Secrets and the Unpaid Benefits Campaign approached the North Gauteng High Court, asking the court to review and set aside the regulations in so far as they do not provide for meaningful public participation and transparency in the appointment process

It is unfortunate that Minister Mboweni chooses to only engage civil society through court processes. We hope that this litigation will change his mind generally about how he engages with the public, and specifically about how he makes appointments and better acts in the public’s interest.

Open Secrets is a non-profit organisation which exposes and builds accountability for private sector economic crimes and related human rights abuses through investigative research, advocacy, and the law.

The Unpaid Benefits Campaign is a membership based organisation and a coalition of coalition of groups of former workers, community organisations, advice offices, NGOs and individual activists, campaigning for the payment of the estimated R50+ billion in pensions, provident or compensation funds held by the private sector.

The Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS) is a human rights organisation based at the Wits School of law. CALS uses a combination of research, advocacy and litigation to advance social justice.

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While few immediately associate youth issues with pensions, the reality is that many young people actively participate in and even depend on the pensions industry. This includes their participation in the ongoing struggle of millions to access more than R42-billion in pension benefits owed to individuals and families.

Young people interact with the pensions industry in various ways. Some in formal employment already contribute to a pension or benefit fund or are considering which fund to choose. Those counted among South Africa’s spiralling youth unemployment figures (now at 53.18%) might never have considered a pension, but they will surely need it if they are to escape poverty. Then there are the many children being raised by their grandparents whose only source of income is their pension. 

But there is another group. The young people who are actively trying to secure the unpaid pension benefits of parents, grandparents or relatives who have been failed by the pensions industry. Whichever way you slice it, pensions are an intergenerational issue, making the misdeeds of the pensions industry as much a youth justice issue as they are a geriatric one.

In November 2019, Open Secrets released its investigative report The Bottom Line: Who Profits from Unpaid Pensions? The investigation catalogues the cancellation of over 6,000 pension funds in both flawed and unlawful ways. Hundreds of these funds had still not paid out their members. The Bottom Line implicates private fund administrators and the regulator – the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) – in failing to fulfil their legal duties during the cancellations scheme and avoiding accountability in the fall-out.

Beyond the cancellations scheme, there are billions in unpaid benefits that remain in active funds. These include dedicated ‘unclaimed benefits funds’ set up by fund administrators to preserve the benefits until their beneficiaries are found and paid. Fund administrators and asset managers continue to earn fees from these assets. Yet administrators, fund trustees and the regulator – despite having significant resources – have not done enough to ensure that these funds are paid out.

The Bottom Line was accompanied by a booklet, Look Beyond the Bottom Line, which tells the stories of pensioners and other beneficiaries from the Unpaid Benefits Campaign and the Cape Town Ex-Mineworkers Forum. Their stories highlight how an unscrupulous industry – including former employers, fund trustees and fund administrators – has dragged them from pillar to post with little consideration for their plight. 

Many of the people we spoke to live in dire poverty. They explained how receiving their benefits would allow them to fix their homes, feed their families and retire with dignity. Many of them were grandparents and the primary caretakers of grandchildren who they support on the measly state pension. During the interviews, some of these children played outside or sat next to their grandparents as they relayed their stories.

Read more here

The post Countless South Africans are owed pension benefits, and yet claiming is a constant battle appeared first on Open Secrets.

16 June 2020 | Mamello Mosiana |

While few immediately associate youth issues with pensions, the reality is that many young people both actively participate in, and depend on, the pensions industry. This includes their participation in the ongoing struggle of millions to access over R42 billion in pension benefits owed to individuals and families, but that remain unpaid. Paying this money is a matter of justice not just for pensioners, but for young people too.

Young people interact with the pensions industry in various ways. Some in formal employment already contribute to a pension or benefit fund or are considering which fund to choose. Those counted in South Africa’s increasingly high youth unemployment (now at 53.18%) may not even have considered a pension, but will surely need if they are to escape poverty. Then there are the many grandchildren being raised by their grandparents whose only source of income is their pension.

But there is another group. The young people, who are actively seeking the unpaid pension benefits of parents, grandparents or relatives who have been failed by the pensions industry. Whichever way you slice it, pensions are an intergenerational issue, making the misdeeds of the pensions industry as much a youth justice issue as they a geriatric one.

In November 2019, Open Secrets released its investigative report The Bottom Line: Who Profits from Unpaid Pensions? The investigation catalogues the cancellation of over 6000 pension funds in both flawed and unlawful ways. Hundreds of these funds still had not paid out their members. The Bottom Line implicates private fund administrators and the regulator – the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) – in failing to fulfill their legal duties during the cancellations scheme, and avoiding accountability in the fall-out.

Beyond the cancellations scheme, there are also billions in unpaid benefits that remain in active funds. These include dedicated ‘unclaimed benefits funds’ set up by fund administrators to preserve the benefits until their beneficiaries are found and paid. Fund administrators and asset managers continue to earn fees from these assets. Yet, administrators, fund trustees and the regulator – despite significant resources – have not done enough to ensure that these funds are paid.

The Bottom Line was accompanied by a booklet, Look Beyond the Bottom Line, which tells the stories of pensioners and other beneficiaries from the Unpaid Benefits Campaign and the Cape Town Ex-mineworkers Forum. Their stories highlight how an unscrupulous industry, including ex-employers, fund trustees and fund administrators, has dragged them from ‘pillar to post’ with little consideration for their plight. Many of the people we spoke to live in dire poverty and explained how receiving their benefits would allow them to fix their homes, feed their families and retire with dignity. Many of them were grandparents and the primary caretakers of grandchildren who they support on the measly state pension. During the interviews, some of these children played outside or sat next to their grandparents as they relayed their stories.

We also spoke to Tshidiso who at 36 was the youngest of our interviewees. Tshidiso, and his family are looking for the benefits owed from the 20 years that his grandmother, Anastasia, worked as a cleaner for the Telephone Manufacturers of South Africa (TEMSA). Unfortunately, Anastasia passed away in 2007 and it was only in 2012 when her family discovered that she may have been owed benefits.

Anastasia like many people then and now, did not have a clear understanding of the deductions on her pay-slip or the pensions industry in general. This is a systemic problem in how employers, pension funds and their administrators fail to communicate clearly to employees about their benefits and associated rights. Tshidiso’s family was only alerted to the issue of his grandmother’s potential benefits by talk of surplus payments for those who had worked at TEMSA in their neighbourhood of KwaThema. Surplus assets are the difference between what a fund owes its members and the market value of the assets it holds; it can, on occasion, be paid to the fund members in addition to their main benefit.

Tshidiso’s family went to enquire about this at MIBFA’s offices. They were told that his grandmother did not qualify because the surplus only became payable in 2008, a year after she passed away. Despite being heartbroken by the arbitrariness of this decision they have continued to look for Anastasia’s main pension benefits as they still qualify to receive it as her beneficiaries.

Tshidiso’s family is poor and unable to secure adequate health care for his disabled mother and aunt. Tshidiso was unable to finish his degree at the University of Johannesburg because his family did not have enough money to continue to pay for his fees. He has since struggled to find work.

Tshidiso’s story mirrors that of many young South Africans who are forced to drop out of university due to lack of finances and an ever expanding youth unemployment rate. Even with financial assistance, only 34% of financial aid students graduate from university. 

Moreover, many students are in debt to universities, collectively owing them millions of rands. The debt dates as far back as the 1980s. Many indebted students are refused access to their degrees or diplomas despite completing their education, leaving them unable to secure work to help them pay off the loans.

For Tshidiso, the financial barrier to his higher education degree could be eliminated by his family receiving his grandmother’s benefits. He would be able finish his final year at university, which he believes will aid him significantly in his job search. His family would also be better able to access essential care for Tshidiso’s mother and aunt.

Tshidiso’s story embodies the multi-layered and inter-generational effects of exclusionary systems. To look for his grandmother’s pensions, his family uses the photo of her receiving a long-time service award from TEMSA, and her ID document. They do not have her payslips or any other record of her employment. Just the framed photo. In the photo, Anastasia is shaking the hand of a white man at an awkward distance – a familiar symbol not of the COVID19 era but of the racial segregation of apartheid.

After months of listening to people relate the stories of the horrors of working in harsh conditions and for little pay during apartheid, the image of Anastasia receiving that certificate and listening to her family’s contemporary struggles brought home the magnitude of the impacts of racialised labour and the maladministration of the pensions industry.

When speaking to the ex-mineworkers, many of our interviewees revealed that they used their Blue Cards from the mines, or their passbooks, to prove their work record. Just like the passbook or dompas, the photo of Anastasia’s long-time “service” award is a symbol of the draconian and exploitative aspects of Apartheid. The fact that many Black people are forced to rely on these symbols to access their rights in post-Apartheid South Africa highlights the continued racialised socio-economic exclusion of Black people .

Poverty is cyclical in its nature. Poor people experience barriers to education and basic services, meaning that their children are unlikely to progress out of the social class they are born in. The payment of Anastasia’s benefits will not fix our deeply unequal society, but it would be the first step towards economic justice for Tshidiso and the rest of her family. It would help her grandson in his attempts to break the long generational chain of poverty and help him provide for his own son, who is dependent on two unemployed parents and the state child support grant.

It is thus incumbent on regulators and pension fund administrators to reinstate cancelled pension funds and work to trace the millions owed unpaid benefits, as well as build systems that are responsive to those trying to access their benefits. This includes families like Tshidiso’s. While many actors in the pensions industry are from the private sector they fulfil a social welfare role and profit from doing so. It is imperative they play their part in correcting years of profiteering off the misery of the poor, and are held accountable where they fail. There are millions whose lives and futures depend on it.

Please, look beyond the bottom line.

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The post The Unpaid Pensions Youth- the Millions Beyond the Bottom Line appeared first on Open Secrets.