The fatal shooting of 34 miners at Marikana mine on 16 August 2012 was a tragic event for South Africa. One and a half years later, the Farlam Commission of Inquiry is still under way and many of the families affected have not yet found closure. Yet, there is some good news. Several organisations, including Lonmin and Fairheads Benefit Services, have collaborated to help ease the plight of the Marikana widows and their children.
Until recently, I did not know that Fairheads had been involved in setting up beneficiary fund accounts for the children whose families had lost a breadwinner. Giselle Gould, Business Development Director, explained that Fairheads felt it was not something they wished to publicise, given the pain of the people involved. I persuaded her to let me write an article however, as the work that has been done is an example of how the power of many can make a difference to individual lives. For the public who may not be familiar with beneficiary funds, this story may also help to place their use and advantages in context.
Lonmin’s Masakhane Provident Fund appointed Fairheads as beneficiary fund service provider in 2012. Death benefit lump sums allocated to minor dependants of deceased provident fund members are paid at the trustees’ discretion into a beneficiary fund, in this instance Fairheads’ flagship superfund, the Fairheads Umbrella Beneficiary Fund (previously known as Fairfund). Beneficiary funds are a safe and tax-efficient way of managing minors’ assets, paying an income to the guardian or caregiver for subsistence and making special payments for medical and schooling expenses. In Fairheads’ experience, over 70% of ad hoc payments are used for education (ad hoc payments are those special requests over and above the monthly income payment).
Fairheads set up 103 beneficiary fund accounts
Once the trustees of the Masakhane Provident Fund had conducted their investigation into the dependants and made allocation decisions, Fairheads set up a total of 103 sub accounts for the minor dependants of the 34 deceased miners. Yet it became clear that there was overlap as Lonmin, the miners’ employer, had set up its own trust to help pay for the children’s education. This is called the Sixteen Eight Memorial Trust whose stated purpose is to provide education support for the beneficiaries of employees who passed away following the tragic events of August 2012.
Realising the potential overlap of education payments and confusion on the part of the guardians, Fairheads held discussions with Lonmin to seek ways in which to cooperate so that the Sixteen Eight Memorial Trust is used for education expenses and the beneficiary fund assets rather used for other expenses and/or left to grow in the beneficiary fund until the child turns 18 when he or she is entitled to the remaining capital.
Monde Matolengwe, Fairheads Key Account Consultant for Masakhane Provident Fund, told me that the system is now working well and that extensive discussions have been held with the widows to explain the complexities of the various vehicles and what expenses to claim from which entity. He said that these consultations usually take place when the widows travel to Pretoria to attend the Farlam Commission hearings.
Lonmin’s human resources department invited Fairheads at the time of the Marikana one-year anniversary in August 2013 to attend a workshop they had organised for the families and staff and make a presentation on beneficiary funds so that the people involved could understand how they work.
What struck me was that people have reached out to each other notwithstanding the pain and divisions caused by Marikana to make sure that the most vulnerable of all, the children of the deceased miners, will be cared for. Longstanding relationships of trust have been established.
How one family is doing
It did not surprise me therefore to learn that Monde, the Fairheads Masakhane consultant, told me that he communicates regularly with most of the families via SMS or Whats App. He asked one of the widows if she would mind chatting to me. I spoke for about 10 minutes, through Monde as interpreter, with Thandi*), a young woman who is the second wife of one of the deceased miners with whom she had two children. One child is in Grade R and the other in Grade 10. She said that they were alright and that school was going well for them, although the older child still had recurring emotional trauma from the death of her father and required counselling at school. She had moved provinces to look for work to supplement their income and has a tough underground job with a mining house. She understood that education claims were to be made to the Sixteen Eight Memorial Trust and that the beneficiary funds were to be used for clothes and food.
Thandi said it was easy to talk to Fairheads and access was easy through Whats App. She meets Monde regularly as he travels through to Pretoria to collect any necessary documents from her while she is visiting the Commission.
I wished her well and reflected how fortunate she was in a sense, to have the support and care that is being provided for her children. It is my hope that other vulnerable children, regardless of the circumstances under which they have lost a parent, will be given the same degree of care.
* Not her real name
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