GEPF road show reaches Sekhukhune
Jane Furse
The Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF) is appealing to its former government employees, dependents of a deceased government employee, retired and resigned GEPF members and also guardians of GEPF members’ beneficiaries to claim their unclaimed funds.
As it stands, the fund acknowledges that it is faced with a challenge of unclaimed and unpaid benefits.
The GEPF has published names of all people who didn’t claim their benefits on its website.
In Limpopo Province alone, there are millions of unclaimed benefits waiting to be claimed by their beneficiaries.
The department which leads other departments in the province in terms of unclaimed funds is the Department of health, followed by the Department of education.
On May 28th 2022, the entity held its event at Jane Furse Comprehensive School. The event was aimed at sharing critical information regarding the fund’s guidelines.
It also provided instant on-site assistance to address queries and resolve any challenges that its members may have.
During the event, Sekhukhune Times witnessed hundreds of GEPF members gathering at the school to engage with GEPF officials who provided on-site assistance regarding their challenges.
One of the officials was on stage, calling numbers and numbers given to the members and pointing to the desk they should go for assistance.
During an interview with GEPF senior from national level, Mario Landeque, he said, this initiative was aimed at helping and informing people about their benefits.
Having two regional offices in the province, one in Polokwane and the other in Thohoyandou, Mario said they also expanded their footprint in the province by bringing services to people.
“GEPF is a pension fund for all public servants. We have got about 1.2 million active members and we have about 480 000 pensioners we pay on monthly basis,” said Mario.
“GEPF was established on May 1st 1996, prior to that there were about 13 different funds that government employees were registered to. And so we took all members of the 13 different funds and combined it to be one, and it was given the name Government Employee Pension Fund,” said Mario.
He acknowledged the challenges that the funds faces, which include unclaimed and unpaid benefits and also added on what causes those challenges.
“Benefits that are supposed to be paid to members or beneficiaries are returned to the fund due to incorrect banking details, dormant accounts or incorrect pay points.
“The GEPF does not have enough information in respect of the deceased member’s spouse or beneficiaries,” explained Mario.
He added that some of GEPF beneficiaries have tax problems and the fund cannot get a tax directive from South African Revenue Services.
“If you have tax problems we can’t pay you until you sort out your issues with SARS first,” he said.
Mario further said some employers are not sending documents of former employees in time and when documents reach them they discover that the submitted documents contain errors that have not been rectified.
He advised public servant to at least sort out their issues six months prior retirements including tax issues.
For member of spouse to access unclaimed benefits they have to complete banking details form Z894, certified copy of ID, an updated personal details Z864 from.
If applicant is a beneficiary they must submit copy of death certificate, certified copy of ID for beneficiary, banking details form Z894 form, a guardian letter in the case of minor beneficiary and certified copy of guardian’s ID.
Pensioners who worked at private sector were turned away as this fund is strictly for public servants.
GEPF members are advised not to fall into bogus trap and share their sensitive information with them, should they need more information they could contact national call centre at 0800 117 669.
