Elderly mother added to late son's R5.26 million death benefit despite widow's objections

Tribunal grants elderly mother share of late son's R5.26 million benefit.

An elderly and illiterate mother has been confirmed as a dependant entitled to a share of her late son's R5.26 million death benefit after the Financial Services Tribunal found that the Pension Funds Adjudicator had wrongly rejected her claim .

The tribunal set aside the adjudicator's determination and upheld the original decision by the Illovo Sugar Provident Fund to allocate 10% of the death benefit to Marriema Appanna, the mother of deceased fund member Appanna Gandhi Sanassyi.

The ruling followed a dispute brought by the deceased's widow, Dorothy Divyashanty Sanassyi, who challenged the decision to include her mother-in-law among the beneficiaries.

The deceased died in January 2021 at the age of 60 after having been a member of the Illovo Sugar Provident Fund since January 1982.

After the addition of late-payment interest and deduction of tax, the amount available for distribution was over R5.26 million.

The fund's trustees investigated the circumstances of the deceased's surviving family members and decided to allocate 65% of the benefit to his widow, 25% to his son, Jemuel Jerial Sanassyi, and 10% to his mother.

At the time of her son's death, Marriemall was about 81 years old according to the initial background, although the tribunal's later analysis records her as 84. She was illiterate and unable to manage her own financial affairs.

The fund's investigation found that his son had taken responsibility for managing his mother's finances because of her age and illiteracy. He regularly paid her municipal rates, electricity and water bills, bought groceries and covered medical and transport expenses.

The investigation also found that Marriemall's own pension or other income was insufficient to meet her monthly expenses, with the shortfall being covered by her son. The fund concluded that, had Appanna lived, he would have continued supporting his mother because she was unlikely ever to become financially independent.

Sanassyi, however, challenged the 10% allocation before the Pension Funds Adjudicator.

She argued that the assistance her husband provided to his mother was merely administrative and did not amount to financial maintenance or substantive dependency.

She also alleged that her sister-in-law, Jessy, who was also her mother's caregiver, had inflated the expenses through fraud.

The dispute went through three rounds of adjudication, with the adjudicator repeatedly setting aside the fund's allocation to Marriemall.