Lebogang Mogashoa, the Pension Funds Adjudicator has sent a clear warning to pension trustees that delay, neglect and administrative lethargy in paying beneficiaries will not go unpunished.
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The Office of the Pension Funds Adjudicator has delivered a scathing judgment against the Mineworkers Provident Fund after it delayed the payment of death benefits to a deceased member’s dependants for more than five years.
Pension Funds Adjudicator Lebogang Mogashoa condemned the fund’s conduct, saying its handling of the matter reflected “passiveness, reactivity and lethargy”, a failure that denied beneficiaries timely access to money legally owed to them.
At the centre of the dispute is a death benefit worth R458 358.59, which became payable after the mineworker died on July 27, 2020.
The complainant, who said she was married to the deceased in a customary marriage later formally registered after his death, told the adjudicator that she had repeatedly sought answers about the payout but was met with delays and poor communication. She said the deceased left behind three children from previous relationships, as well as one child they had together.
The Mineworkers Provident Fund argued that it began the Section 37C process after being notified of the death on August 31, 2020. However, it said complications arose because its records still reflected the deceased as alive according to the Department of Home Affairs database, prompting it to wait for that status to be updated.
The fund also said it had requested documentation from the complainant and other potential dependants, maintaining that key information needed to complete the process remained outstanding.
But Mogashoa found the fund’s explanation wanting.
In his ruling, he noted that despite learning of the member’s death in August 2020, the fund only requested basic supporting documents six months later, in March 2021. After that, its attempts to move the matter forward were infrequent and irregular — limited to sporadic follow-ups in June 2021, March 2022, September 2022, February 2023, and July 2025.
“Over five years, the board’s lethargic approach amounted to little more than a handful of phone calls,” Mogashoa found, adding that such inactivity unfairly prejudiced dependants who may have desperately needed the financial support.
He stressed that under Section 37C of the Pension Funds Act, pension fund boards have a clear legal obligation to actively trace dependants and investigate claims. Trustees cannot simply wait for beneficiaries to come forward.
Calling the delay unacceptable, the adjudicator ordered the fund to pay interest of 15.5% on top of the death benefit, sending a strong warning to pension trustees that delays, neglect and administrative inertia will carry financial consequences.