Teachers quit en masse

Teachers are resigning in droves despite assurances that their pension payouts will not be affected by proposed reforms.

Jay Morar, acting chief operating officer of the Government Pensions Administration Agency, said the agency had paid out up to R75-million in benefits between May and December last year to teachers who had resigned because they were afraid of losing their pensions.

In November alone, 4600 teachers resigned. Morar said they were people on the verge of retirement, between the ages of 55 and 60.

"There is a rumour circulating that, on March 1, Government Employees Pension Fund members will no longer be entitled to a lump sum ... [This] is a total lie," Morar said yesterday.

He said the introduction of the pension reforms had been suspended pending further discussion.

"It is hoped that [the reforms will] be reintroduced by March 1 2016, provided an agreement is reached."

In the 2013-2014 financial year the agency served 708 employer departments, representing about 1.2million public servants, as well as more than 360000 pensioners.

Morar said the agency has more than R1.4-trillion in assets and was the single biggest investor on the JSE through the Public Investment Corporation.

He said 62832 public servants had died in the past seven financial years, an average of 749 a month. More than 26800 public servants resigned each year.

The agency handled an average of 2239 resignations and 2079 retirements each month, he said.

"On average, over the past two financial years, the agency has paid annuities, or monthly pensions, to the value of R2.2-billion to pensioners, spouses and orphans. The agency paid an average of R733-million a month from April to December 2014 as gratuities [or once-off lump-sum payments] to pensioners who retired," he said.

In what he referred to as an "elephant in the room", he said the agency had R456-million in unclaimed funds owed to 17000 untraceable beneficiaries.

Morar said the agency had approached Home Affairs, a tracing company and credit bureaus to assist with tracing beneficiaries.

In one case, a man living under a bridge in Soshanguve, Pretoria, was traced. He was unaware that he was entitled to a payout of several hundreds of thousands of rands.

"He was paid what was due to him, allowing him to return to the studies he had been forced to abandon on the death of his mother."