SPEECH FOR THE ROAD SHOW ON THE 12TH OF MAY

Address by a GEPF Trustee on the occasion of Gauteng Roadshows, 12 May 2012  

GEPF Leadership Team

Members and Pensioners of the GEPF

Programme Director

It gives me great pleasure to address you this Saturday morning and I would like to thank you for joining us in our third roadshow in 2012 where we will be sharing information about the latest developments within GEPF and your role in helping us improve our service delivery to you.  

As the Board of Trustees, we are working very closely with the Government Pensions Administration Agency which administers benefits on behalf of GEPF, to ensure that we improve service delivery to all members, pensioners and beneficiaries.

To that end, I am pleased to report that we have made significant progress on the service delivery front. For example, since the 1^st of October last year, we stopped issuing pensioners with Life Certificates. This simply means that GEPF pensioners will no longer need to go to the trouble of visiting a Commissioner of Oaths in order to confirm their life status.  Pensioner details will instead be automatically updated by using information from the Department of Home Affairs.

Furthermore, the GEPF’s Board of Trustees recently approved a 4.8% pension increase for all its pensioners which was paid on the 1^st of April 2012.

The Board also approved the extension of funeral benefits and orphans’ pensions to all pensioners irrespective of their retirement date, provided they are alive as of the 1^st of April 2012. In the past, only those pensioners who retired after December 2002 qualified for a funeral benefit and an orphan’s pension. In addition, all current pensioners will now have the option of reducing their pensions if they elect to increase their spouses’ pension to 75% in the event of death of a pensioner. All these new developments have been fully implemented as from the 1^st of April 2012.

As the Board of Trustees, we would like to encourage our pensioners to apply for SASSA’s government old age grant – the State Old Age Pension – in order to supplement their pensions. Our research has shown that many pensioners are unaware that they may be eligible for all, or part, of the old age grant, depending on their income and assets. For example, if you are single and your pension is less than R3700 per month and or you are married and your combined pensions are less than R7400 per month, and you are currently not receiving any part of the old age grant, please consult your nearest SASSA branch to check if you qualify or not.

According to SASSA, more than half of GEPF pensioners could qualify for the government old age pension.

The Board has also passed a resolution to introduce the Clean Break Principle into the Government Employees Pension Law, which provides for former spouses to claim their share of the pension interest on divorce or dissolution of a customary marriage instead of waiting for the member to exit the Fund.

This simply means that former spouses can now have immediate access to their share of the pension interest on divorce. We will in the coming weeks be rolling-out an education campaign to educate members about the implications of the Clean Break Principle. 

Furthermore, the Board has resolved to give active members the greater of either the minimum resignation benefit or actuarial interest when resigning from the public service. The good news about this rule amendment is that the member will receive the greater of the two benefits on resignation.  For more information on these latest developments, please read your newsletters.

One of the questions we are often asked by both our pensioners and members is how we are investing their money. I’m pleased to report to you today that just last month – the assets under management of the GEPF surpassed the R1 trillion mark (this is an audited figure), confirming our status as the largest pension fund on the African continent.

The growth of the Fund also allows the Board of Trustees to buy profitable assets with excellent investment returns. Just last month, the GEPF bought Pareto, a property company, from the Eskom Pension Fund for R6.8 billion.  Pareto owns regional shopping centres in major cities such as Sandton City in Gauteng, Cavendish Square in Cape Town and The Pavillion in Durban and others. This means that GEPF members and pensioners are now the new owners of these top-class shopping centres in South Africa.

In addition, GEPF members and pensioners own roughly 10% of some of the big companies on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange such as Anglo American, Standard Bank and many others.  

Ladies and gentlemen, these investments which we have made on your behalf are vital in ensuring that we can afford to pay pensions on a monthly basis, pension increases, resignation and retirement payouts, without asking for additional funding from government.

Before I close, I would like to assure our members and pensioners that the Fund’s R15.7 billion investment in SANRAL is safe. The Board of Trustees will be talking to SANRAL and government to make sure that this investment is safeguarded.

In closing, as the Board of Trustees, we are pleased to provide you with a platform to engage with us directly so that you may voice out your opinions, highlight challenges and raise any concerns you may have about the way we deliver services to you.

I would like to urge you to use this opportunity fruitfully. I will now leave you in the capable hands of my colleagues from the Government Pensions Administration Agency and I’m looking forward to your questions later on in the programme.

I would like to wish you well with today’s deliberations!

I thank you!