by Fifi Rhodes
Windhoek
The Forum of Former Rössing Workers (FFRW) is to wait another three weeks for the High Court to decide whether RÖssing Uranium Pension Fund (RPF) should distribute a portion of N$454 million of surplus assets of the pension fund to them.
Judge Shafimana Ueitele on Tuesday postponed the case until February 19 after lawyers on both sides asked for a postponement due to certain logistics. With a packed gallery in C-Court of the High Court, weary former workers in one of the longest running matters wanted to hear at least some advancement on the matter but now must comply with the postponement.
Advocate Norman Arendse from W.Boesak Chambers in Cape Town asked Judge Ueitele that the joint decision of the Rössing Board of Trustees and Rössing as the principal employer be set aside as unlawful, and that the Rule (Rule 19.4.2) that provided for the principal employer to make a decision regarding the surplus be declared unlawful and invalid and be set aside.
He further submitted that the applicants be entitled to their costs, including the costs of the employment of the two counsels. He said the Namibia Financial Institutions Supervisory Authority (Namfisa) as the pension regulator had not yet approved the decision of any allocation.
According to him there were possibly about 10 000 potential beneficiaries – former and current fund contributors.
In the allocation sheet former workers would receive 15%, 33% to current members and 53% to the principal employer.
The contention went public in 2008 when the FFRW, spearheaded by former Rössing worker Winston Groenewald, started a process in which it is requesting a ‘fair and equitable’ share of the surplus for about 10 000 former workers (dead or alive) who had worked at the mine and contributed to the pension fund since the mine opened in 1975.