The Widows Who Wait: The Compensation Fund’s Endless Delays

The Compensation Fund has been accused of failing sick and injured workers and their families.

• The Compensation Fund, set up to pay out compensation to sick and injured workers and their families, has accumulated R107-billion in assets.
• The money comes from employers who pay a levy based on their wage bill.
• The Fund says claims are assessed promptly but some claimants have been waiting years to receive money owed to them.
• The Auditor-General and MPs have been highly critical of the Fund’s administration.

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.”

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 (COIDA) 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.

But in recent years the Fund, which has been failing audits for 12 years and counting, has faced allegations of inefficiencies and delays in payments of claims. In February the Auditor-General’s office told Parliament that it had flagged potential fraud at the Compensation Fund, including multiple bank accounts for medical service providers which had perhaps been used for fraudulent purposes.

The Auditor-General said almost every aspect of the institution was dysfunctional.

Compensation Fund spokesperson Hloni Mpaka told GroundUp that of the 107,205 claims received in 2024/25, 99% had already been adjudicated — meaning they have been assessed to determine whether to accept or reject liability. In 2023/24, of 107,713 claims received, 98% had been adjudicated.

But many claimants, like Swarts, are still waiting for their payouts.

Melanie Adams* of Vereeniging also lost her husband to mesothelioma, in January 2022.

The 57-year-old widow said she submitted all the required documentation soon after his death, but the Fund has to date failed to pay for his funeral expenses, let alone his pension.

“I don’t know how many reference numbers I’ve accumulated from the phone calls I’ve made to the call centre. Every time I call, I’m told they are still busy calculating burial costs”.

Adams said she was told by an official recently that her husband “must first die in the Fund’s system” before her funeral expenses claim could be processed, and a pension payout would only be considered after this step.

Waiting for the money for so many years has been emotionally draining, said Adams. “Every day you call the labour department it’s like reliving the horror of losing a loved one all over again.”

“Dealing with indifferent government officials takes a toll on your mental health,” said Swarts. “I find myself crying all the time… Sometimes I even wonder if I’m not also running out of time… what if I die before I receive the money… How long will I have to wait?”

According to the Compensation Fund’s latest annual report, in the year ending March 2024 the Fund generated R13.5-billion from employers, an increase of about 13% on the 2022/2023 financial year. During the same period, it paid out R4.6-billion in claims, a 39% drop from the R7.4-billion paid out the previous financial year.

During 2023/2024, about R1.4-billion was paid out as pension benefits. About R260-million was paid out as compensation to workers, and more than R3-billion was paid for employees’ medical costs.

“The Compensation Fund is failing workers and their families,” said the chairperson of Parliament’s Select Committee on Economic Development and Trade, Sonja Boshoff. “People injured on duty or who have developed occupational diseases are being left to suffer, some for more than eight years, without the compensation they are entitled to. That is nothing short of a betrayal of workers’ rights,” she told GroundUp.

Boshoff said at a meeting with the Fund in June, the committee had noted with concern “the lack of transparency, the persistent backlogs, and the weak accountability framework”.

She said the committee would continue to demand evidence of improvement and not just promises.

Asked about delays in payment of claims, Mpaka said: “The finalisation of claims is dependant on multiple issues such as information from employers, injured employees, beneficiaries and medical service providers, and those are identified as the main contributor towards finalisation or non-finalisation of claims.”

Asked if any measures were in place to deal with the concerns raised by the Auditor-General and Parliament, she did not reply, in spite of follow-up questions.

*Not her real name.

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