Sunday Times writes that families of deceased ANC employees are suffering because Luthuli House has not been contributing to their pension and provident funds for more than two years, despite making deductions from salaries.

The newspaper has traced two families of ANC workers who died last year who have yet to receive pension payouts months after burying their loved ones. These revelations come as the party faces a financial crisis, even failing to pay salaries on time. The cash crunch has led the party to consider raiding parliamentary caucus funds intended for election research. ANC deputy secretary-general, Jessie Duarte, said last week that the party was not broke: “We are struggling. Broke means that you have nothing at all. We have a cash flow problem because the funders that we traditionally relied on have stepped back.” Two ANC staffers said they had been made aware that the ANC was in the process of settling half of the ballooning provident fund debt, while insiders said the party promised to do so by end May. Meantime in parliament, ANC caucus staff have taken their party to the CCMA for entering into an agreement with a pension fund administrator to introduce a pension fund from March this year. After almost two years of being without a retirement fund and despite repeated calls for engagement to find the best possible deal, ANC employee claim they were informed only four days before the March payday that management had entered into a deal with Sanlam. Caucus employees say they have no proof that deducted funds were indeed paid to the fund administrator. The CCMA matter will be heard on 3 July.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Kgothatso Madisa, Zimasa Matiwane, Andisiwe Makinana and Aphiwe Deklerk on page 4 of Sunday Times of 16 May 2021

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