OFM | 24 October 2019

More than four million people are apparently waiting for pension payouts. Non-profit organisation Open Secrets said these benefits amount to more than R42-billion.

Thomas Malokotsa is still waiting for benefits from his deceased father’s pension fund, more than 30 years after his death.

Malokotsa joined the Unpaid Benefits Campaign in 2017 after discovering hundreds of others in a similar position.

“He was a Lesotho national, and he was told that he doesn’t qualify for any of his pensionable benefits for all these years since he started working in the mines for more than 27 years. He died in 1985 with no pension benefits”, said Malokotsa.

Open Secrets has found thousands of pension funds were cancelled over several years by pension administrators.

“In hundreds of cases it shows the pension fund still had assets, which means they still had money, and they still had members that needed to be paid out.

So legally, they should never have been cancelled. Further, what happens when the fund gets cancelled, it puts people in a position where they cannot be paid by that fund”, said Michael Marchant, researcher: investigation and advocacy at Open Secrets.

Open Secrets is hoping its investigation will lead to financial regulators and administrators being held accountable.