Public servants take pension fund to court over benefits
ONE of the biggest unions representing state employees is taking its pension fund to court in a bid to preserve shrinking benefits.Public servants have usually enjoyed guaranteed, and rising, retirement and resignation benefits.The Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF) is one of the few remaining defined benefit funds in SA, which prides itself on providing a pension based on final salary and length of service, not as in most funds which operate on a defined contribution system in which the pension is based on the value of the member’s underlying assets in the fund.But some public servants got a rude shock recently when the benefits they had been quoted just weeks before were cut, in some cases by 7%.Leon Gilbert, assistant GM: interest of the Public Servants Association (PSA), said the GEPF, which has 1.3-million public servants in its membership, had revised the actuarial values of its members’ financial interest in the fund. "Imagine the shock when someone who was quoted a res...
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