More than R16-million has been paid out to claimants who suffer from asbestos poisoning, the Asbestos Relief Trust said on Wednesday.
Over 100 claims had been paid out, while 150 more were ready to be finalised, chairperson of the trust, John Doidge, said in a statement.
The fund was set up a year ago and was established by Gencor after extensive litigation was brought against the company.
The task of the trust was ”mammoth”, as it was responsible for providing compensation to any miners, ex-miners, or people living in the mining area who suffered from an asbestos related disease, as well as the families of people who have died due to asbestos exposure, Doidge explained.
Doidge said 638 claims were received in the first six months, but most of these were incomplete, or incorrectly filled out, so an important task of the Trust was to educate and create awareness about the programme. They did this with the help of community groups in and around Kuruman, which was one of the most seriously affected areas, he said.
The Trust had had to employ the services of many companies to streamline the process of compensation, Dodge explained.
They hired an actuary firm to establish how many claims there were likely to be, so that the funds did not run out before everyone had been compensated.
They set up a panel of experts at the University of Cape Town’s Medical School to review claims, and engaged professional claims processors and law firms to assist with the paperwork.
The trust also provided infrastructure and funding for medical examinations for every person who needed one, he said: ”After visiting Kuruman, the trustees were determined that every hurdle in the path of the claimants would be removed.”
Doidge said the quality of the claims had ”substantially improved,” and the trust was now able to pay a claimant within three months of the receipt of a claim.
”In the case of mesothelioma sufferers, we are paying claimants out within two weeks.”
Mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer, has a 38-year latency period, so although Gefco and Msauli, the two asbestos-mining groups formerly owned by Gencor, had closed all their mines, new asbestos sufferers appear all the time.
”The trustees are mandated to ensure that… current sufferers are not preferred over future sufferers. We are operating with a finite amount of money,” Doidge said.
The litigation against Gencor started in May 2002, and had to be hurried through to prevent the company ”unbundling” its assets, so that there would be no money to pay the claims, according to documents from Thompsons law firm.
After intervention from the state, the Asbestos Relief Trust, valued at over R400-million, was set up in September 2003.
On September 14 2001, the last asbestos mine in the country, Msauli, on the banks of the Komati river in Mpumalanga, was decommissioned and all asbestos mills closed. – Sapa