Johannesburg - A group of former Transnet employees are pinning their hopes for a huge payout from the state-owned company on the outcome of their case in the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria.
The long-standing battle between the pensioners, Transnet, Transnet Second Defined Benefit Fund and the Transport Pension Fund last week headed for the North Gauteng High Court as Transnet allegedly attempted to stop the pensioners’ more than R80 billion class action lawsuit.
Speaking shortly after attending the court hearing in Pretoria last week, one of the pensioners and a co-founder of the Transnet Pension Action Group, Richard Carr, said the pensioners were happy with the proceedings in the North Gauteng High Court.
The hearing dealt with exceptions raised by Transnet and the two funds to the pensioners’ claim.
Judgment was reserved.
A representative of the pensioners’ law firm, Geyser and Coetzee Attorneys, said yesterday that a ruling on the matter could be made by Thursday next week.
In 2013, the pensioners claimed a total of R80bn from Transnet. But this figure was likely to have escalated now. For instance, the legacy debt alone was R17.1bn on April 1, 1990 and its interest had been escalating at 12 percent a year, Carr said.
Carr worked for Transnet for 27 years as a telecoms engineer. When he retired in 2005, he was a regional manager.
Carr said the pensioners had tremendous reasons for hope in the long-running dispute. “When we started back in 2011, we knew very little about the issues. We got together and said we have to do something about this. We tried to contact Transnet but soon realised that courts were the only option for us,” he said.
“As amateurs, we had to gather a tremendous amount of information and try to understand what it was about. We could not just leave everything to the lawyers. It was important that we were also able to have a sensible conversation about the matter,” he added.
He said the pensioners were pleased that their group of lawyers were doing the work on a contingency-fee basis. In this arrangement, the pensioners did not have to pay the legal team upfront. Instead, they would pay them a percentage of their claim if it was successful.
“So it’s not costing the pensioners any money at the moment,” he said. The pensioners only incurred peripheral costs “and for those we asked and received tremendous support”, he said.
Wim Trengove leads the legal team acting on behalf of the pensioners.
Carr said Transnet pensioners were surviving on paltry pension payouts, with the average payment being R3 000 a month.
“But there are many who receive R1 000 and R1 500 and these are the people who have been with the company for many years. We are talking about people who gave their lives to the company,” he said.
Transnet declined to comment on the matter. “The pension class action is the subject of an ongoing court process. Transnet, therefore, would prefer not to comment on the details of the case until the process is concluded,” the company said.
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