EEC LIKHWANE BENEFICIARIES DEMAND TO SEE MD

MBABANE – An emphatic discussion and tearful submissions were some of the highlights of a meeting between EEC Pension Fund Principal Officer Churchboy Dlamini and its beneficiaries yesterday.

The beneficiaries, whose pension was invested in Likhwane Beneficiary Fund, demanded to have an audience with Eswatini Electricity Company (EEC) Managing Director Ernest Mkhonta, wanting answers to the delay in the distribution of their benefits. Likhwane clients are almost exclusively the Boards of major corporate entities and in the event that the employees of such a company pass away, the Board provides Likhwane with the funds that are held in their pension or provident schemes, so that they may be managed appropriately.

Invests

Likhwane invests the death benefits and uses the interest earned to provide for the basic needs of the minors. These include paying the children’s daily living expenses such as food, transport and school fees. This means that Likhwane assumes the financial responsibility that would ordinarily be borne by the minor’s parents or family members. They also pay tuition and school fees for children who are in universities or primary and high school. Likhwane was one of the investors in ESW/Ecsponent, where individuals, companies and organisations lost a total investment of E340 million, thus failing to deliver on its mandate. Likhwane lost an investment amounting to E63 million. Yesterday, at least 14 parents/guardians of the beneficiaries of the pension that was invested in Likhwane were locked in a two-hour meeting with the company’s Pension Fund principal Officer, at the company’s headquarters in Mbabane.

The meeting was aimed at unpacking the difficulties they experience due to the delay in the distribution of the benefits, owing to the situation at Likhwane. The parents/guardians told Dlamini that some of their children had been expelled from school for owing school fees while those whose school fees for the year were paid in full, owed transport fees in respect of vehicles that ferried them to and from school. The issue of hunger due to lack of grocery money was one that saw some of the parents actually breaking down and crying while narrating their ordeal. This was a common submission from most of the parents who wanted Dlamini to give them a solution to as it was a thorn in their flesh. One of the parents said the situation was so dire that she wished her husband was still alive to assist her in raising the children. She said when her husband passed on, she was pregnant and she was now struggling to meet the needs of the child in respect of nutritious food, clothes and sometimes medical bills, among other things.

The teary-eyed woman said making it past each day was a hustle and to think that there was money saved by her late husband in the form of a pension, which she now had no access to, was immeasurable pain. Identified as Sukati, one of the guardians, whose beneficiaries are his late brother’s children, submitted that he was now taking from his own pocket to assist his nephews and nieces, especially with transport fee. “We are sinking in debt because we have been soliciting the services of shylocks to make ends meet, hoping that the situation will go back to normal and we will get our monthly up-keeps and the other benefits. Shylocks are bothering us on a daily basis, demanding that we pay back their monies and this is having a toll on our health. The rights of the children are being violated in the worst possible manner,” said one of the parents.

The parents then told Dlamini that they would not be leaving the office until he gave them money or vouchers to buy food because the children back home were expecting them to come back with hope in the form of the basic commodities and answers on their school fees money, among other things. Responding to the submissions made by the parents, Dlamini said the Pension Fund Board was currently engaging with the company’s management, seeking assistance in the form of funding to bail out the fund and the negotiations were ongoing.
He explained that the pension fund was an independent body that had its own Board, hence the company had no business in its operations. That was after the parents expressed their discontent in the response that was given by Dlamini on their challenge. They then demanded to see the MD of the company to directly demand answers from him. One of the queries that the parents had was how EEC got into an agreement with Likhwane to have the pension invested with the latter, without their knowledge or consent to which Dlamini said it was a decision taken at an executive level.

Demand

The response did not sit well with the parents and it intensified their demand to have an audience with Mkhonta to appreciate how the entity got into an agreement with Likhwane without their consent. The parents actually demanded to see the contract between the two parties, which they claimed was agreed upon without their knowledge. “If you have to call the police on us, so be it but we want to meet with the MD and have him explain to us how the company decided to take our money and invest it with Likhwane without our consent and we also want him to give us a clear and straight forward response on our food and school fees issues,” said the parent. Dlamini explained to the parents that having an audience with the MD at such short notice was not possible, but he could arrange for them to meet the Pension Fund Board members, a platform where they could voice out their grievances and craft a way forward.

However, the parents shared that the only way that could be possible was when the company gave them food vouchers so that they could get groceries and also reimburse them the money they used to get to the EEC headquarters. After a 15-minute caucus Dlamini had requested to have with his team, he reported back to the parents that the entity could only meet one of the conditions forwarded by the parents and that was the reimbursement of the transport fare. Despite resistance from the parents who insisted on getting food vouchers, a consensus was reached by the meeting that they would be reimbursed their transport money and the issue of food and school fees would make the agenda of the meeting scheduled for this Friday.

Agreement

A questionnaire, which sought to get clarity on the parents’ submission that they did not consent to the investment into Likhwane and to also appreciate how the entity got into that agreement, was sent to Dlamini. He confirmed that the parents met the principal officer and would only meet the Board of Trustees at a later date than they have been advised of.
“It then becomes difficult to comment or pre-empt the meeting and its outcome and as such would not be able to answer the other questions you raised,” he said. Likhwane Principal Officer Freddy Magagula, when asked to shed light on the process that led to the agreement between the two entities as enquired by the parents, said the matter was in court and it would not be proper for him to address any issues relating to it outside of court.  It is worth mentioning that the parents will be meeting with the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) today to engage on the same issue.

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