Wednesday, June 9, 2010

R475m owed to 50 000 widows


R475m owed to 50 000 widows

2010-06-09 21:19
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kalahari.net
Corrections, Corruptions and Counterfeits

Maputo - Southern African labour ministers will discuss recovering the pensions of 50 000 dependants of mineworkers from South African mines whose pension funds vanished in the Fidentia scandal, Mozambican state media reported on Wednesday.
They would try to “develop an intervention strategy to recover R475m that would have been paid to the widows of the respective countries' miners,” according to the Noticias newspaper.
Ministers from South Africa, Mozambique, Swaziland, Lesotho and Botswana would discuss the matter at the 99th session of the International Labour Conference in Geneva, Switzerland this weekend.
Almost 50 000 widows and orphans were left destitute after the Living Hands Trust, a mineworkers' pension fund, went bankrupt in 2007. Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown currently faces charges in Cape Town's High Court for fraud, theft, and money-laundering for the disappearance of over R1.2bn from the trust.
Since the trust was placed under curatorship in 2007, one payment was made to beneficiaries in December 2009, Sipho Sidu, principal officer of the Mineworkers Providend Fund, told Sapa earlier.
During recent talks in Maputo, Mozambique SADC labour ministers decided to make a concerted effort to recover the funds.
Mozambican widows often travel to South Africa in vain to try and arrange payments.
Mozambican Labour Minister Helena Taipo told the newspaper they should not suffer due to mismanagement of the fund.
- SAPA
Read more on: corruption fidentia helena taipo j arthur brown

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