Mr Speaker, in the past three years, since 2009, the Compensation Fund's net asset value has ballooned from R21,4 billion in 2009 to R24,6 billion in 2010, and then to R27,6 billion in 2011. At the same time, certain beneficiaries are finding it very difficult to access funding from the fund. Two thirds of the approved claims are not paid out in the year that the request is made! By March 2011, the last date for which there are reliable statistics, the Compensation Fund had 70 000 unprocessed applications! That is not acceptable.
The Compensation Fund exists to help those workers who get sick or become injured at work due to the negligence of an employer. It is not right that the Compensation Fund should sit on an ever-growing portfolio of investments, while thousands of desperate people struggle to access the funding they depend on for their daily livelihoods.
The Compensation Fund has set a target of a turnaround time of three months after the claim is registered. It is clear that the fund is consistently not meeting this target. The statistics for the year ended March 2011 show that 30% of new claims take longer than three months to be processed. The DA urgently calls on the Compensation Fund Commissioner, Mr Shadrack Mkhonto, to turn this situation around. Thank you. [Applause.]