A total of 6 876 complaints were received by the office of the Pension Funds Adjudicator from March 2008 to March 2009.
In her annual report for the period, the adjudicator, Mamodupi Mohlala, says she has introduced new measures to reduce the backlog on complaints. The measures include setting up conciliation services to try to help complainants and funds reach a settlement without a ruling from the adjudicator.
Of 1 164 cases referred to conciliation, 757 were settled successfully.
The PFA office had a backlog of 10 182 cases in March 2008 and received 6 876 new complaints in 2008/9. Mohlala finalised 8 207 cases in the same period, leaving her office with a backlog of an estimated 8 851 cases in March 2009.
A total of 12 116 cases have been finalised since Mohlala took office in April 2007.
According to the report, factors contributing to the increase in the number of complaints received include the recession, which has led to job losses in many industries, and the Pension Funds Amendment Act, which brought the private security sector, the contract cleaning sector and the bargaining council funds under the jurisdiction of the PFA.
A total of 4 147 complaints involving the Private Security Sector Provident Fund (PSSPF) were submitted in July 2007 as a consequence of the fund falling under Mohlala's jurisdiction. All these complaints were finalised during the 2008/9 year. Some of the complaints were against employers who belonged to the fund but failed to pay contributions to the fund after collecting money from employees. Other complaints related to employers who failed to register with the fund in terms of a ruling which makes membership of the fund compulsory for all security companies in the private sector.
By October 2008, 1 164 PSSPF determi-nations had been signed, 2 362 complaints settled and 621 complaints abandoned because the employers who were being forced to join the fund could not be traced.
A further 1 392 complaints against the PSSPF were submitted in November 2008. By March 2009, 172 of these had been settled, 407 abandoned and 813 carried over to the current financial year.
In June last year, Mohlala told Personal Finance she had a backlog of more than 10 000 cases, with at least 400 new complaints each month. For the year from March 2008 to March 2009, her office received an average of 570 complaints a month.
- The Pension Funds Adjudicator's office can be contacted in Johannesburg on 011 884 8454 or you can email the office at [email protected]