The country’s largest pension payout company is involved in micro-lending on the side, targeting poor pensioners and charging them exorbitant interest rates on small loans.
Aplitec, the JSE-listed company which pays out pensions through its subsidiary Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) provided loans in KwaZulu-Natal through another subsidiary called Age Secure. The company closed three months ago but is still operational in that it continues to collect monthly instalments from those it has lent money to.
According to Aplitec, its micro-lending business is now outsourced to a company called Star Choice.
A Mail & Guardian investigation has found that pensioners in the province are having these loan instalments deducted from their pensions at source, receiving the balance when they go to their paypoints each month. This is apparently in violation of a Department of Social Development directive which says that deductions may not be made before payout.
Director general of the Department of Social Development, Vusimuzi Madonsela, described the apparent conflict of interest by Aplitec in its operation of a micro-lending business as ”highly unethical.”
Mbulelo Musi, spokesperson for Minister of Social Development Zola Skewiya said: ”The minister would also be concerned about the conflict of interest and that the deduction of the amount from the pensions before payout is a violation of a directive from the department.”
Aplitec this week confirmed its micro-lending business but denied that the interest rates charged by Age Sure were ”too high” or that the company had violated any departmental directive.
Serge Belamant, the head of Aplitec, said Age Secure did not do anything wrong by deducting loan instalments before pensions were paid out.
Belamant said the department allowed loan instalments to be debited from a pension if the pension had been banked.
”We are banking the pensions — the accounts are like any other bank accounts. The pensions are paid into the accounts and then loan instalments are debited.”
But these are paper transactions — the deductions are made before pensioners have access to their money. Pension payslips in the possession of the M&G show that Age Secure is still deducting instalments. Belamant admitted that the company was still taking money from pensioners who took loans before the company closed.
He said Star Choice, which now runs the micro-lending business in KwaZulu-Natal, is a ”100% black-owned enterprise”.
An official at Star Choice’s offices in Durban claimed the company was ”owned by Aplitec” and that its directors included Mike Gumede, who until recently was the spokesperson for KwaZulu-Natal Department of Social Development MEC Gideon Zulu.
Zulu is responsible for pension administration. Gumede confirmed his directorship of Star Choice but denied that Aplitec owns shares in the company. According to Aplitec, which was listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 1997, it handles the pensions of more than two million people in five provinces. This represents more than 70% of the pension and welfare business in South Africa.
Age Secure started operating about two years ago, offering loans of between R200 and R500 to pensioners in KwaZulu-Natal.
After evaluating Age Secure’s monthly interest rates of 9,3% and annual rate of 112% this week, a financial expert said these were excessive.
Buselaphi Hlungwane, a pensioner from Table Mountain village outside Pietermaritzburg, borrowed R500 from Age Secure to pay her water bill and buy groceries.
Her pension is the only source of income for a seven-member household, which includes her unemployed son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren. After six months, she had repaid R780 to her loan provider.
Another pensioner, Gladys Mthembu, also borrowed R500 and ended up paying R780 back. However, Belamant denied that Age Secure’s interest rates were too high. He claimed that his company had provided pensioners with a much cheaper alternative to the unregistered ”loan shark” sector which, he said, charges an interest rate of 50% per month.
Belamant said the fact that micro-lending to pensioners was a ”high-risk” business had to be taken into account.
Musi said his department is currently working on proposed legislation, to be called the Older Person’s Bill, which would, among other things, prevent micro-lenders from deducting loan instalments from pensions before they were paid out.
Madonsela said the Social Assistance Act, which regulates grants, was also being revised.
Jann Augustyn of the Micro Finance Regulatory Council said the organisation has been concerned about the exploitation of poor pensioners and is conducting an investigation into all micro-lending operations.