The Financial Services Tribunal has set aside a ruling that dismissed a widow’s complaint about her late husband’s Eskom pension death benefit. The benefit was first approved at R5 million and later recalculated to about R4.7 million.
The tribunal upheld L Crawford’s application for reconsideration, IOL reported. It found that her complaint about the assessment process was warranted.
“The question of whether the recalculations were accurate and properly substantiated by complete, reliable and authentic supporting evidence is in doubt,” the tribunal found.
The Pension Funds Adjudicator had earlier dismissed Crawford’s complaint about the size of the benefit. The tribunal said that decision did not engage with how the amount was worked out.
Her husband, I Crawford, worked for Eskom from July 1988 until he resigned in July 2021. He remained a deferred member of the Eskom Pension and Provident Fund until his death in April 2022.
A board resolution gave 100% of the death benefit to his wife as the sole beneficiary.
The fund first calculated the benefit at R5 million, including investment returns up to his death. The board confirmed the amount on 19 April 2023 and told Crawford it would be subject to tax.
The fund later found that interest had wrongly been added beyond the date of death. It said interest was added for April 2022, although he died on 1 April.
The fund recalculated the investment value at over R4.8 million. An actuarial calculation put the benefit at R4.7 million, which was the final amount paid.
The widow received R3.2 million in December 2024 and more than R369,000 in October 2025. Those amounts were the balance after tax deductions.
Crawford accepted that she was not entitled to an overstated benefit caused by the fund’s interest error. She challenged the revised figure because of missing documents, conflicting figures and what she called a lack of transparency.
She said she had asked for complete and authentic benefit statements to check the disputed amounts. Statements for 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021 and 2022 remained outstanding.
She pointed to three different figures given during the process. They were R4.835 million, R4.787 million and R4.782 million.
The fund told the tribunal that the missing statements could not be retrieved from its system. It said its rules allowed an actuary’s estimate to be used to calculate pension benefits.
The fund also argued that benefit statements were non-binding estimates and not promises of payment.
The tribunal found that the calculations were made without the statements for the five outstanding years. A spreadsheet on the missing information was later given to Crawford, but it was not in the record before the tribunal.
The tribunal found that the board did not have the spreadsheet when it considered the benefit. It also found that the adjudicator did not have all the material documents when deciding the complaint.
The fund said it was willing to engage directly with Crawford to explain its method and figures. The tribunal said the fund should explain how the spreadsheet was put together and show how its accuracy was established.
Source: this article is based on reporting by IOL. Image: IOL. Written with the help of AI and published by the Tzaneen Voice News desk. See our Editorial Standards.
Kgomotso Maake covers news and politics for Tzaneen Voice. Kgomotso reports on government, Parliament, municipalities, courts, crime and service delivery across South Africa, with a close eye on how national decisions reach towns like Tzaneen and the wider Limpopo province. Stories are written in plain English and focus on the facts: who made the decision, what it means, and what happens next.