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Cape Town - If Transnet elects to once again block a pensioners’ class action at the Constitutional Court, the Freedom Front Plus says it will seek an application for a punitive cost order against Transnet board members as well as pension fund trustees who voted against the pensioners.
The opposition party which has taken up the cudgels for 62 000 Transnet pensioners who believe their pension funds have been mismanaged, says a decision this month by the Supreme Court of Appeal has bolstered their collective hand. This is the second time that Transnet has appealed court decisions and the state-owned transport company may seek to block the action - once again - at the highest court, the Constitutional Court.
Anton Alberts, a Freedom Front Plus MP who has led the campaign of redress for the pensioners in parliament, said on Saturday that the dismissal by the Supreme Court of Transnet’s application for leave to appeal a ruling allowing the pensioners to bring an R80bn class action suit “spells grim prospects for Transnet”.
Alberts said if Transnet did, indeed, take the Constitutional Court route, “I will ask the (pensioners’) advocates to request a punitive cost order against the individual directors of Transnet and the trustees of the two funds who voted in favour of this move.”
The Supreme Court of Appeals said on December 17 there was no reasonable prospect for success in an appeal.
Alberts said: “It (the Supreme Court of Appeals decision) basically means that Transnet and the two (pension) funds concerned will find it difficult to win the case… this dismissal reduces the prospects of Transnet winning on the merits of the case as this has also been adjudicated, albeit not in depth, in the original class action application by the pensioners and the two applications for leave to appeal (brought) by Transnet.”
It was now incumbent on the Minister of Public Enterprises Lynne Brown, Alberts believed, to intervene and have this matter settled. “If not Transnet will face a huge fiscal cliff of its own making.”
The pensioners now await the court date for the adjudication on the merits of their case. It is now expected that when the courts resumed in January, the South Gauteng High Court would issue summons to this effect.
On October 3, the South Gauteng High Court dismissed Transnet’s application for leave to appeal. Judge Ephraim Makgoba ruled there were no grounds for an appeal.
Judge Makgoba had earlier - on July 31 - granted an order allowing pensioner representatives Johan Kruger and Johan Pretorius an order allowing them to launch a class action suit on behalf of the Transnet pensioners.
The pensioners – some of whom get as little as R200 a month – have argued that they have been diddled out of billions of rands through poor management of the Transnet funds, the Transnet Second Defined Benefit Fund (TSBDF) and the Transport Pension Fund, which includes a Transnet sub-fund. For example Transnet in 2001 exchanged government bonds worth R7.7bn which earned the fund R1.2bn in interest per year in shares in M-Cell. The shares were sold in 2006 and the TSBDF’s estimated loss was over R5.4bn. Some R800m in surplus funds was paid over to the transport state company in 2000.
In a recent parliamentary question by Alberts to Minister Brown, he asked who had been paying the legal fees in the class action. Brown replied that the Transport Pension Fund (Transnet Sub Fund) and the TSDBF settled all costs “from available cash, being costs incurred by the TSDBF in the court case in respect of the class action”.
Alberts asked the minister that in the light of Transnet losing the appeals against the class action, the government had thought of settling with the pensioners, she said: “The ministers of public enterprises and finance (the State parties) filed notices against the class action application. In this regard, Judge Makgoba found the draft particulars of (the) claim did not disclose any claim against the State parties … and (thus) the State parties have nothing to defend in this application.”
The opposition party which has taken up the cudgels for 62 000 Transnet pensioners who believe their pension funds have been mismanaged, says a decision this month by the Supreme Court of Appeal has bolstered their collective hand. This is the second time that Transnet has appealed court decisions and the state-owned transport company may seek to block the action - once again - at the highest court, the Constitutional Court.
Anton Alberts, a Freedom Front Plus MP who has led the campaign of redress for the pensioners in parliament, said on Saturday that the dismissal by the Supreme Court of Transnet’s application for leave to appeal a ruling allowing the pensioners to bring an R80bn class action suit “spells grim prospects for Transnet”.
Alberts said if Transnet did, indeed, take the Constitutional Court route, “I will ask the (pensioners’) advocates to request a punitive cost order against the individual directors of Transnet and the trustees of the two funds who voted in favour of this move.”
The Supreme Court of Appeals said on December 17 there was no reasonable prospect for success in an appeal.
Alberts said: “It (the Supreme Court of Appeals decision) basically means that Transnet and the two (pension) funds concerned will find it difficult to win the case… this dismissal reduces the prospects of Transnet winning on the merits of the case as this has also been adjudicated, albeit not in depth, in the original class action application by the pensioners and the two applications for leave to appeal (brought) by Transnet.”
It was now incumbent on the Minister of Public Enterprises Lynne Brown, Alberts believed, to intervene and have this matter settled. “If not Transnet will face a huge fiscal cliff of its own making.”
The pensioners now await the court date for the adjudication on the merits of their case. It is now expected that when the courts resumed in January, the South Gauteng High Court would issue summons to this effect.
On October 3, the South Gauteng High Court dismissed Transnet’s application for leave to appeal. Judge Ephraim Makgoba ruled there were no grounds for an appeal.
Judge Makgoba had earlier - on July 31 - granted an order allowing pensioner representatives Johan Kruger and Johan Pretorius an order allowing them to launch a class action suit on behalf of the Transnet pensioners.
The pensioners – some of whom get as little as R200 a month – have argued that they have been diddled out of billions of rands through poor management of the Transnet funds, the Transnet Second Defined Benefit Fund (TSBDF) and the Transport Pension Fund, which includes a Transnet sub-fund. For example Transnet in 2001 exchanged government bonds worth R7.7bn which earned the fund R1.2bn in interest per year in shares in M-Cell. The shares were sold in 2006 and the TSBDF’s estimated loss was over R5.4bn. Some R800m in surplus funds was paid over to the transport state company in 2000.
In a recent parliamentary question by Alberts to Minister Brown, he asked who had been paying the legal fees in the class action. Brown replied that the Transport Pension Fund (Transnet Sub Fund) and the TSDBF settled all costs “from available cash, being costs incurred by the TSDBF in the court case in respect of the class action”.
Alberts asked the minister that in the light of Transnet losing the appeals against the class action, the government had thought of settling with the pensioners, she said: “The ministers of public enterprises and finance (the State parties) filed notices against the class action application. In this regard, Judge Makgoba found the draft particulars of (the) claim did not disclose any claim against the State parties … and (thus) the State parties have nothing to defend in this application.”
