RA Funds: Determintions Issued by the PFA despite SOI

In December 2005 an announcement was made of a Statement of Intent concluded between the Minister of Finance, on the one hand, and the Life Offices Association and five large life assurers on the other, in terms of which the life assurers would commit themselves to certain minimum standards in respect of retirement annuity funds and endowment policies. Although the statement is not binding on this office, we nevertheless referred all retirement annuity fund complaints back to the management boards and life assurers administering these funds with a view to facilitating an amicable resolution of the complaint between the parties without the intervention of this office. During the past months many complaints were settled on this basis but the settlement terms were not divulged to this office. Due to the parties reaching a settlement agreement, it was unnecessary for the office to issue formal determinations.

However, those complaints that were not resolved had to be determined in the ordinary course. The pension funds adjudicator recently issued several rulings involving RA Funds, where the parties could not reach agreements. The rulings are available on the PFA website at http://www.pfa.org.za/( under the heading of determinations).