Members of the Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF) are demanding change from national board members. 

It held a national campaign on Saturday at the local campus of TUT during which members raised various concerns.

The aim of the campaign was to educate, improve credibility, and to build and enhance the relationship between it and its stakeholders.

It is a defined benefit fund with over 1,2 million active members and more than 375 000 pensioners.

Most of South Africa’s government employees are members of the fund.

Employees of other institutions can also belong to it, if the board of trustees approves their employers as participating employers. 

Acting principal executive officer, Ms Joelene Moodley says the basis of this outreach is to interact with the members, pensioners and beneficiaries.

“We want to understand the level of service our members are receiving in their respective provinces,” she explained.

“Some of the public servants are not aware of us, but we don’t want government employees to wake up one day and ask what it is.

They shouldn’t then only realise that they did not fill in the necessary forms, do not know their benefits, resigned early or don’t know about penalties from a tax perspective,”she added.

Some of them were unhappy about the rules and requirements regarding their funeral benefits and retirement funds. Ms Thembi Makhunya is a teacher, who voiced concern regarding regulations about benefits in the Department of Education in the province.

According to Makhunya the department has issued a directive that says educators will not be allowed to resign or get early retirement.

She asked that GEPF review the retirement age in the department which she feels should decrease from 60 to 55 years.

“Looking at life expectancy and the unemployment rate in our country, most people who are over the age of 55 are not productive at work.

And we believe that early retirement is a right which each and everyone of us deserves. If a person feels tired they must be allowed to rest, ” she explained.

The eligible child to benefit from the pension fund is a natural or adopted child aged 18 to 22.

“The age of the beneficiary must not be an issue when paying out pension funds, since some of the members have children who are older than 22, are unemployed and depend on their parents,” Makhuya added.

Acting general manager of client relation management in GEPF, Mr Mario Lindeque, says he had a meeting with the MEC for education, Ms Reginah Mhaule, who has consequently started an outreach in the province since one of her concerns is that a lot of teachers are resigning and requesting early retirement.

The rumours that they will not receive their pension fund payout are not true, according to Lindeque.

He said that Mhaule was concerned about the shortage of teachers due to early retirement. It is within the MEC’s mandate to ensure that schools have sufficient teachers,” he added.

Moodley says the roadshow has encouraged her and other board members to step back and reflect from a service-delivery perspective on how they can improve and what they can do to ensure better administration.

She says they have challenges at their call centre such as incorrect member details.

“We will reflect on how we can turn these issues around and how we will put proper controls and measures in place to deliver the right services,” she explained.