Minister of Labour, Youth, Sports and Manpower Development Henry Mussa has said about 6 000 out of 13 839 Malawian ex-miners expected to benefit from compensation and social security funds have submitted their details and data.
Mussa said this in Parliament on Friday in response to a question from Dedza South member of Parliament (MP) Patrick Themu (Malawi Congress Party-MCP) who asked the minister to update the National Assembly on the position of unclaimed provident fund benefits to ex-miners who worked in the mines in South Africa.
In his response, the minister said the Malawi Government was aware that the beneficiaries were yet to receive their pension funds from the 1970 provident funds in South Africa for the past 12 months.
He said his ministry was working with stakeholders to claim the money at the earliest opportunity.
Said Mussa: “The honourable member may wish to take note that the process to claim the funds is now at an advanced stage as out of the 13 839 identified beneficiaries, so far 6 000 have submitted their details and data to the South African government provident fund administrators for final processing and disbursement of the funds.”
He said once the funds are processed, the money will be directly remitted to beneficiaries’ bank accounts.
About 18 million South African rand is expected to be remitted back to Malawi Government under the transaction.
A research conducted by the Southern Africa Trust (SAT) in 2013 shows that more than K242 billion (5.7 billion South African rand) is owed to mineworkers and their families in compensation and social security funds.
The research found that the funds have not been claimed by former mineworkers and the funds are currently being held in various South African social security and compensation institutions, including Botswana, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique, Lesotho and Swaziland. n
