/ 13 June 2007

R125m bonus for Transnet pensioners and beneficiaries

Transnet pensioners and their beneficiaries will receive bonuses totalling R125-million at the end of July, Transnet group chief executive Maria Ramos announced on Wednesday.

The bonus will be paid and funded solely from Transnet’s resources and is available to the pensioners and beneficiaries of the Transnet Second Defined Benefit Fund (TSDBF) and for the ”previously disadvantaged widows” (PDWs).

These are spouses of black pensioners who retired from the state-owned freight transport company during the period December 16 1974 to April 1 1986 and who subsequently died before November 1 2000 and whose spouses were not entitled to a spouse’s pension from the Transnet funds, she told a media briefing in Cape Town.

This unprecedented once-off ex-gratia bonus was in addition to any benefits currently received from the fund, including the 2%-a-year guaranteed increase that members of the TSDBF were entitled to, she said.

In terms of the plan, everyone would receive a 1% bonus, while those with 15 years’ service receiving less than R12 000 a year would receive a top-up bonus to R12 000.

Spouse beneficiaries would get 70% of the top-up and children 56%.

Those pensioners and spouse beneficiaries over the age of 65 would receive an additional 1%, while PDWs would also get the top-up bonus to R12 000.

For example, a pensioner with 15 years of service and over the age of 65 currently receiving R750 a month (R9 000 a year) would get a bonus of R3 120.

A PDW currently receiving R234 a month (R2 808 a year) would receive a lump sum of R9 312 at the end of July.

Ramos said in determining the basis of this bonus, the plight of pensioners with long service (because they were unlikely to have significant alternative retirement funding income), those over the age of 65 (because they were unlikely to be in a position to earn extra income) and those with low pensions were prioritised.

Similarly, the board felt that a bonus for all the pensioners was necessary.

”Top of our minds were those pensioners who dedicated long service to the company or its predecessors and the ‘previously disadvantaged widows’ who are some of the worst hit by the legacy of apartheid. Some of them receive as little as R234 a month.”

The bonus was made possible by the company’s strong balance sheet, she said.

The TSDBF had done very well under the leadership of its current trustees working together with Transnet in the past two years.

The fund was currently in a strong surplus position of about R1,9-billion (still to be confirmed by actuarial valuation) and assets of R21,5-billion, Ramos said. — Sapa