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Pension Fund Adjudicator’s report shows that more employers are failing to pay over retirement fund contributions

Details

pfaFin24 reports that the Pension Funds Adjudicator released her 2021/22 integrated report on Tuesday and it shows that complaints about non-payment of retirement contributions by employers jumped from 24% to over 40% in one year.

"This is of great concern to the OPFA (Office of the Pension Funds Adjudicator) as fund non-compliance, and section 13A matters have been a consistent feature over the years and continue unabated to the detriment of pension fund members," the Pension Funds Adjudicator, Muvhango Lukhaimane, lamented. The OPFA received 8,858 new complaints between 1 April 2021 and 31 March 2022, over and above the 2,109 cases it carried over from the previous financial year. It closed 8,382 of those. Although the number of complaints was still lower than pre-pandemic levels, the proportion of those relating to non-payment of retirement contributions increased. They made up 40% of complaints received by the OPFA in 2021/22, coming second to grievances about withdrawal benefits. Section 13A of the Pension Funds Act stipulates that employers must pay contributions to the pension funds in which they participate. Yet there have been many high-profile cases in SA where parties responsible for making these payments on behalf of members failed to do so. These include the governing ANC and the suspended CEO of the Property Practitioners Regulatory Authority, Mamodupi Mohlala. The OPFA said while it was understandable that employers faced financial challenges in the recent past, it should not be acceptable that pension fund members had to bear the brunt. The consequences were dire for members, who usually found out when they tried to claim that their employers were not paying their retirement contributions.

  • Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Londiwe Buthelezi at Fin24


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