An 84-year-old woman, Mamzwakazi Ntloyile, has lost her bid to force the Municipal Employees Pension Fund to investigate her claim for a spousal pension. The Financial Services Tribunal ruled that her complaint was lodged almost 10 years too late. Ntloyile's husband, a member of the Municipal Employees Pension Fund since 1977, passed away on June 26, 2010. The Fund stopped paying his pension in May 2015 after discovering his death.
The Fund had continued paying Ntloyile her husband's pension, totaling R61,659.32, between July 2010 and May 2015, but argued these payments were made in error. Ntloyile believed she was entitled to a spousal pension under the Fund's rules, which provide for a surviving spouse to receive 50% of the pension the deceased received. However, the Fund disputed her entitlement, citing that she was not married to the pensioner when he retired.
Ntloyile lodged a complaint with the Pension Funds Adjudicator on October 8, 2025, seeking an order compelling the Fund to pay her the spousal pension. However, the adjudicator closed the complaint on May 22, 2026, finding it was time-barred and that he lacked jurisdiction to investigate. The adjudicator said Ntloyile became aware of the cessation of payments in May 2015 and should have lodged her complaint by May 2018.
In her reconsideration application, Ntloyile argued that prescription should only have started running on September 9, 2024, when her lawyers emailed the Fund's administrator, enquiring about the pension benefit. She claimed she had only discovered at that stage which pension fund administered her husband's benefits. Ntloyile also pointed out that she was 84 years old and uneducated, with no understanding of the Prescription Act.
The tribunal found that Ntloyile's explanations did not establish why her complaint should be treated as having been lodged within the prescribed period. It noted that she had approached the Fund's offices in June 2015 to enquire about the discontinued payments and was therefore in a position to request further information and lodge a complaint if dissatisfied with the response.
The tribunal acknowledged sympathy for Ntloyile but said it was bound by the provisions of the Pension Funds Act. It stated that neither the adjudicator nor the tribunal could act beyond the powers granted to them by law, and that the legislation did not provide for discretion to condone non-compliance with the three-year time limit.
The tribunal concluded that Ntloyile had failed to establish any basis for overturning the Adjudicator's decision and dismissed her application for reconsideration. The ruling did not determine whether Ntloyile was entitled to a spousal pension under the Fund's rules, as it found that the complaint was time-barred.
Key points
- The Financial Services Tribunal dismissed an 84-year-old widow's complaint over a spousal pension due to a 10-year delay in lodging the complaint.
- The widow, Mamzwakazi Ntloyile, was seeking a spousal pension from the Municipal Employees Pension Fund following her husband's death in 2010.
- The tribunal ruled that the complaint was time-barred under the Pension Funds Act, which prohibits investigating complaints relating to acts or omissions that occurred more than three years before they were received.
