Eight years and counting...

Endless Delays: Widows Experience Human Cost of Broken Compensation Fund

- Sipokazi Fokazi

Every time the phone rings, Sue Swarts hurries to answer, hoping it might be the Compensation Fund calling at last with news that her late husband's pension will finally be paid.

The 69-year-old widow has waited more than eight years for compensation after her husband of 42 years, Matthys, died from mesothelioma, a deadly cancer caused by exposure to asbestos dust.

He worked at Transnet as a dispatch manager for 32 years and had just gone into early retirement when he fell ill in January 2016. He died the same year.

"The doctors confirmed that he had asbestos cancer and they could do nothing as it was too late," said Swarts. Since her husband's death she has been financially dependent on her sons.

She has been facing an uphill battle with the Compensation Fund.

"It's been the longest wait that has left me in tears. If it's not my husband's payslips going missing, it's an official unavailable or another excuse. I was promised payment months ago, but I'm still waiting," she said.

The fund, which had a surplus of R107 billion in 2023-24 according to its annual report, is set up under the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act of 1993, and falls under the department of employment and labour. Its revenue comes from annual levies paid by employers, based on their wage bill.

The Act mandates the fund to cover medical costs and provide regular payments to employees who suffer injury or disease contracted on duty, and funeral expenses and pensions to the families of employees who die from work-related injuries or diseases.