Johannesburg - Former mineworkers or their beneficiaries in South Africa and neighbouring countries were owed as much as R10 billion in unclaimed benefits, Deputy Minister for Mineral Resources Godfrey Oliphant said on Friday.
Giving an update on steps taken to ensure former workers received their benefits, Oliphant said: “I am led to believe that there are about R30bn in unclaimed benefits.
“A substantial portion of the R30bn is for ex-mineworkers who, partly as a legacy of the migrant labour system, have not accessed these funds.”
He said former miners were owed between R7bn and R10bn in unclaimed benefits.
The magnitude of the unclaimed benefits points to deficiencies in the databases of the mineworkers’ respective retirement funds.
“A key factor that impeded the tracking and tracing of workers for their social protection benefits was the lack of a database of current and ex-mineworkers.
“The Department of Health has subsequently developed a database of ex-mineworkers that covers both the demographic details and medical records of the ex-mineworkers,” Oliphant said.
He said the database covered 700 000 claimant records and would help track and trace former workers with unclaimed benefits.
“To enrich the database we have started discussions with the Chamber of Mines to cover the current workforce of 500 000 mineworkers,” he said.
Oliphant said government efforts since 2013 had seen 14 000 former mineworkers receive compensation benefits amounting to R40 million and 8 000 received Unemployment Insurance Fund benefits amounting to R14m.
The Financial Services Board (FSB), which has oversight over retirement funds, said on Friday that there were numerous reasons for the unclaimed compensation benefits.
A steering committee on unclaimed compensation, led by the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, had been established to ensure the payment of the money to the ex-workers.
FSB chief executive Dube Tshidi said on Friday that the unpaid financial benefits, some of which date back to the 1970s, would not prescribe.
National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) health and safety secretary, Eric Gcilitshana, said on Friday that the union was part of the efforts to trace the ex-mineworkers.
BUSINESS REPORT