Widow fights after Eskom pension death benefit falls from R5m to about R4.7m

A widow has launched legal action after an Eskom pension death benefit that was approved at R5 million was later recalculated to about R4.7 million, raising questions about missing records and conflicting figures. According to IOL, the Financial Services Tribunal has set aside a ruling by the Pension Funds Adjudicator that had dismissed the widow’s complaint.

What happened

The late I Crawford was a deferred pensioner of the Eskom Pension and Provident Fund. He worked for Eskom from July 1988 until his resignation in July 2021 and remained a deferred member of the fund until his death in April 2022. A board resolution allocated 100% of the death benefit to his wife, L Crawford, as the sole beneficiary.

According to IOL, the board approved a lump-sum death benefit of R5 million on April 19, 2023, and informed Crawford that the benefit would be subject to tax deductions.

Recalculation and payments

The fund later discovered that interest had been added beyond the member’s date of death and carried out a reassessment. An actuarial calculation placed the recalculated benefit at about R4.7 million, and that was the final amount paid. Crawford received R3.2 million (after tax deductions) in December 2024 and about R369,000 (after tax deductions) in October 2025, amounts described in the source as the balance after tax deductions.

Dispute over documentation and figures

Crawford challenged the revised calculation, saying she had not been given complete and authentic benefit statements needed to verify the sums. The statements supplied to her covered 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2020; statements for 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021 and 2022 were outstanding.

She pointed to three different figures provided during the process R4.835 million, R4.787 million and R4.782 million and disputed the evidentiary value of an Excel spreadsheet supplied by the fund in relation to the missing records.

Tribunal findings

The tribunal found that the fund had communicated the board-approved lump sum of R5 million before correcting the amount twice, and that the various recalculations were made without the benefit statements for the five outstanding years. Although a spreadsheet relating to the missing financial information was later provided to Crawford, the spreadsheet was not included in the record before the Tribunal.

“The question of whether the recalculations were accurate and properly substantiated by complete, reliable and authentic supporting evidence is in doubt,” the tribunal found.

The tribunal also noted that the Pension Funds Adjudicator had not engaged with the quantification process and had not had all the material documents when determining Crawford’s complaint. It found that the board had not had the spreadsheet when it considered the benefit.

Next steps

According to IOL, the fund told the Tribunal that the missing benefit statements could not be retrieved from its system and maintained that the fund rules permit an actuary’s estimate to form the basis for calculating pension benefits. The fund also described benefit statements as non-binding estimates rather than promises of payment.

The tribunal said the fund should explain how the spreadsheet was formulated and demonstrate how the authenticity and accuracy of the information relied on had been established. It upheld Crawford’s application for reconsideration and sent the matter back to the Pension Funds Adjudicator for further engagement and clarification.

Attribution

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