Tribunal dismisses man's claim for late mother's provident fund benefit
Simon Khoza's attempt to recover over R152,000 from his late mother's provident fund was dismissed by the Financial Services Tribunal due to a late complaint submission."
A man named Simon Khoza has lost his attempt to claim a death benefit of over R152,000 from his late mother's provident fund. The Financial Services Tribunal dismissed his application to reconsider a Pension Funds Adjudicator's decision that refused to investigate his claim, as the complaint was filed years after the fact. Khoza's mother passed away in July 2007, after leaving her job in August of the same year.
Her former employer indicated she had Group Life Cover and a provident fund that provided a death benefit. The employer pledged to help the family obtain payment, but Khoza claims this never happened. Eventually, Khoza approached the adjudicator, but the fund argued that the matter involved historical events from 2007 to 2012, and certain family members had already received payments between 2007 and 2010, of which Khoza was unaware.
In September 2012, a resolution authorized the distribution of the amount among the deceased's five children, but the fund was awaiting ID documents and birth certificates from the children before processing the payments. Khoza's complaint to the adjudicator came in November 2025, more than a decade after the 2012 resolution. The adjudicator found the complaint outside the statutory time limit and therefore uninvestigable, dismissing Khoza's request for reconsideration.
The tribunal emphasized the significance of statutory time limits in pension disputes, explaining that these limits protect fund members from pension funds retaining records indefinitely, which could unfairly prejudice existing members.
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