Siblings finally get their inheritance
Consumer Line ensures provident fund gives dead miner’s children their due
Four siblings, who have lived in abject poverty for eight years while the Mineworkers Provident Fund gave them the run-around, have now received their inheritance.
Fundiswa Jack did everything she had to do to get her father’s death benefits, but she was unsuccessful until she approached Consumer Line a month ago.
Jack of Quthing in Lesotho said her father was employed by Free Miner Gold when he died in 2009.
She and her three siblings were teenagers when both their parents died in 2007 and 2009.
Jack said they did not know how to claim, and the fund never contacted them despite their details being available on her father’s nomination form.
“The fund has one year to locate beneficiaries, as required by law. They failed to do so,” she said.
It was only in 2011 that she was able to lodge a claim, but she was told that she and her siblings had forfeited the money because they did not claim within three years of their father’s death.
Approaching the Pension Funds Adjudicator Muvhango Lukhaimane did not help, as the fund defied her ruling when she ordered them to pay in March 2016.
Lukhaimane told the fund it was dishonest and disingenuous to say the claim had prescribed.
The funds adjudicator said the Registrar of Pension Funds has announced that there is more than R10-billion in unclaimed benefits in the mining industry, therefore the fund has to pay.
Three of the siblings were eventually paid R156 986 each, but their brother, Makhosandile, went to Cape Town in 2014 to look for work, and they cannot get in touch with him.
The fund is withholding his money and has ordered the siblings to locate him.
Jack said she did not know where to start because her brother had never written or called them.
“We may have to ask the courts to give us a presumption of death certificate if he does not return by 2020.”
The pension funds’ Jack Kgosana said issues with the banking details of the claimants had caused a delay.
Fundiswa Jack’s payment had been processed on April 25, but was returned by the bank a day later.
“Payment was re-issued and it is expected to be in the account tomorrow (May 19),” Kgosana said.
A grateful Jack confirmed she was paid.
“I just want to tell you that I received the money. I am so happy I don’t know what to do to show my appreciation.”