About 60 percent of complaints to the Pension Funds Adjudicator (PFA) are about the withdrawal benefits retirement fund members receive when they leave a job before retirement.
Of the 1 430 signed determinations in 2010/11, the acting adjudicator, Elmarie de la Rey, ruled in favour of 118 complainants.
A substantial number of these related to employers who have failed to pay contributions to the Private Security Sector Provident Fund.
This is revealed in the 2010/11 annual report of the PFA.
Other complaints were about death benefits (9.64 percent), retirement benefits (7.8 percent), divorce settlement benefits (2.61 percent), ill health and disability benefits (2.44 percent), transfer of benefits to other funds (1.71 percent) and early retirement benefits (1.57 percent), with a variety of other complaints making up the balance.
As at March this year, there were 8 268 complaints on the books, with 6 123 complaints finalised and 6 220 cases being added to the 8 171 complaints of the previous year.
Of the complaints resolved, 894 were settled by conciliation, 1 430 were resolved with determinations made by the adjudicator, and 3 799 were resolved without requiring a determination.
De la Rey says that judging by the substantial decline in the number of determinations taken on review to the High Court when compared to previous years, as well as listening to feedback from stakeholders, she is satisfied that there is renewed respect and confidence in the determinations made by the PFA.
She says, however, that turnaround times in resolving complaints remain a challenge.
Much has been done to improve the situation, with further improvements being planned for the case management system, including the development and implementation of customer relationship software as well as the ongoing skills development of all staff members.
She says one of the operational improvements implemented in April last year was the formation of a dedicated team in the adjudication unit to deal with complaints lodged before April 2008. This has successfully reduced the number of unresolved old complaints.
It is anticipated that this team will finalise their task and that all complaints lodged prior to January 2009 will be resolved by the end of November 2011.
The adjudication team dealing with complaints lodged before April 2008 has been able to resolve 584 complaints.