Category: English

Source: Government of South Africa

The Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF) has moved to clarify the implementation of revised actuarial interest factors, which are used to calculate members’ benefits.

“The GEPF implemented updated actuarial interest factors with effect from 1 October 2025. The factors are derived from the assumptions adopted in the Fund’s recent statutory actuarial valuation as at 31 March 2024. The implementation of the revised factors follows the completion of a consultative process with employee organisations as at 31 July 2025, as required by the GEP Law and Rules,” the fund said in a statement.

On 1 September 2025, the fund issued a notice that it would implement updated actuarial interest factors with effect from 1 October 2025. Actuarial interest factors are used when the fund must express a member’s earned future pension as a present-day lump-sum Rand amount.

At that time, the fund said failure to implement the revised factors would result in exiting members being paid more than their fair share of the fund’s assets, thereby disadvantaging members who remain in the fund and ultimately those who retire within the fund.

In Saturday’s statement, the GEPF said the revised factors result in actuarial interest values that are on average 15% lower than those that would result from the 2021 factors. It further added that the extent to which individual members’ actuarial interest will differ between the 2021 and 2024 factors depends on their age and category (i.e., whether they are service members or not).

“The revised factors will be applied across all active member records, meaning the balances reflected in all components or pots will be recalculated on the updated basis. Exit benefits, apart from retirements, whether members leave with less than 10 years of total pensionable service, will be affected. All resignations, irrespective of service, will be affected.”
Pensioners’ benefits are not affected by these revised factors.

“This statement is intended to reassure members that the implementation of the revised actuarial interest factors is a legislative requirement as per the GEP Law, unions as representatives of active members were extensively consulted, the implementation does not amount to members’ funds being stolen, nor is the government involved in this process in any way, as incorrectly alleged on social media platforms.”

The fund appealed to members to consult GEPF official channels for a more in-depth understanding of the topic, such as the GEPF website, www.gepf.co.za, YouTube channel, @GEPF_SA as well as GEPF social media platftorms on X, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Earlier in the week, the fund announced the temporary suspension of submission of savings withdrawal applications with regards to the 2-pot withdrawals.

“The Government Employees Pension Fund wishes to inform its members that the submission of savings withdrawal applications will be temporarily suspended from 7 October to 21 October 2025. This pause is necessary to allow the Fund to update its systems with the recently implemented actuarial factors used to calculate members’ benefits,” it said.

During this time, members will not be able to submit new savings withdrawal applications through the self-service platforms.
However, all other benefit payments and services will continue as normal.

“The GEPF sincerely apologises for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciates members’ patience and understanding as we complete these important updates. The savings withdrawal functionality will be reinstated on 22 October 2025, once the updates have been successfully completed,” it said. –SAnews.gov.za

Source: Government of South Africa

Saturday, October 11, 2025

Source: Government of South Africa

The Minister of Higher Education and Training, Buti Manamela, has assured students at Free State and Fort Hare Universities that the department, the universities and police are working hard to protect students and staff. 

Efforts are also underway to reopen Fort Hare University. This after violent protests broke out at the Eastern Cape-based university this week – causing damages estimated between R300 and R500 million.

READ | Minister Manamela calls for calm amid Fort Hare unrest

“Our immense priority is to ensure that the academic program resumes within the next week. In a productive meeting with the university…I’ve directed the University Council and management to put in place all necessary measures to reopen the institution and allow teaching and learning to continue, including temporary online modalities where required.

“Students must be able to complete their studies in peace and also in safety. That is non-negotiable. The university must ensure that the academic year is not put in any jeopardy.”

Manamela condemned the violence at the university – describing it as “criminal”.

“The destruction and violence that engulfed the University of Fort Hare in recent days is deeply tragic. A university should be a space of learning, hope and progress. Not one of fear and destruction. 

“The intimidation of staff… and the disruption of teaching and learning cannot and will never be justified. What has happened at Fort Hare is not protest. It is criminal. It destroys opportunity, it erodes confidence, but it also undermines the dreams of thousands of young people who look to education as their only chance for a better life.

“We are working closely with the South African Police Service, the Eastern Cape government, and the university security teams to restore come and protect students and staff,” he said at a media briefing on Saturday. 

The Minister acknowledged that there are challenges that must be addressed by the institution’s leadership.

“Beyond the immediate crisis, I’ve also asked the University Council to reflect deeply on the number of critical issues when they meet tomorrow. [This] including the state of governance and leadership, the role and status of the SRC [Student Representative Council], the institutional culture of the university, the concerns raised about the Vice Chancellor’s contract and the insourcing of workers, which are some of the issues that are believed to have triggered protest at the university.

“In the coming week, I will respond in greater detail to the feedback received from the ministerial team led by Professor Ahmed Bauer, which has been engaging students, staff, and other stakeholders over the last several days. Their work is central to shaping the next phase of our intervention,” he said.

Arrests 

Turning to matters at the University of Free State where protests have also erupted, the Minister said some 17 students have been arrested including two who attempted to “throw a petrol bomb in a cubicle that houses security”.

“Now this is criminality. Even if these people are students, they are basically unleashing crime. And I think in both instances…we need to make that distinction between people who are students and… criminals who are also in the process endangering the life of other students and staff. 

Safety enhancement

“But we have to approach this in a very systemic way. And that’s why we will be accelerating our engagement internally so that we fix the system internally in order to ensure that we don’t keep students being vulnerable, but also our engagement with the South African Police Service on ways and means within which we can restore order where necessary,” he said.

The Minister emphasised, however, that security responses alone “will not be enough”.

“We have to deal with some of the issues that have resulted in protest in some of the institutions, but also that some of the violence is not even related to protest but it’s related to the fact that institutions are being seen as business enterprises for infrastructure, for tenders, around services, accommodation, and so on and some of this violence is related to that.

“We have to make sure that universities and institutions within the post-school education and training sector return to what they’ve been established for, become places of learning and teaching and not what we have seen in the most recent days,” Manamela said. – SAnews.gov.za

Source: Government of South Africa

While global energy talks at the final G20 Energy Transitions Working Group (ETWG) and Energy Transitions Ministerial Meetings ended inconclusively, a different, more urgent struggle was won – one affecting a young girl who, instead of studying after school, must trek for firewood. 

During the meetings this week, South Africa used its G20 Presidency to successfully champion this cause, lifting the overlooked challenge of clean cooking from the shadows into the mainstream of the G20, a legacy Electricity and Energy Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa called a “major victory” for the continent.

The Minister was speaking during a media briefing at the culmination of the final G20 Energy Transitions Working Group (ETWG) and Energy Transitions Ministerial Meetings held in KwaZulu-Natal this week.

He noted that across the globe, at least one billion people who are mainly African do not have access to clean cooking – forcing them to cook using health threatening fuels like coal, wood, animal dung and paraffin. 

“The major victory is…clean cooking. It’s huge for the continent. You and I could take it for granted but as we sit here, there’s a young girl somewhere in a remote village who comes back from school, drops her books and goes to fetch firewood. That’s what we want to change.

“We know that there’s 1.4 billion people on the continent and one billion of them don’t have access to clean cooking and of that, 600 million don’t have access to electricity. So, I am happy that we were able to find each other…to say that we could differ on other things, but this is a human rights issue. 

“Finally, we agreed. So, the legacy of South Africa’s Presidency is to lift clean cooking into the mainstream agenda of the G20 – the most industrialised powerful countries in the world,” he said on Friday.

Although the meetings did not find a consensus on other issues, the Minister said this was to be expected.
“Given the polarity of views in the energy complex, it was always going to be a very difficult ask for us to be able to get to a consensus that then gets to be lifted into a communique…that all the parties in the room agree on the formulation.

“As we expected…we got to see those tensions. Sometimes it was a binary discussion with renewables on the one side and fossil fuels on the other side and of course, the middle position of doing all of the above. But what was important was to ensure that we surface those issues and conversations were able to happen and unfold,” he said.

The Minister highlighted that although they could not find consensus on all the priority areas at the G20, South Africa will continue to pursue those on other platforms.

“The Ten-Year Infrastructure Investment Plan, it is part of the AU [African Union] 2063 Agenda…we will do that. There are some partners here who area already supporting us. On the issues of green hydrogen…there was a South Africa-European Union (EU) Summit and the President [Cyril Ramaphosa] and [EU President] Ursula von der Leyen have agreed to a set of packages.

READ | President Ramaphosa welcomes €11.5 billion EU investment in South Africa

“Although we didn’t find consensus it doesn’t mean the work doesn’t continue. Even though there are some areas where we couldn’t find each other here, we are working together with individual states and the EU. It doesn’t stop that momentum,” Ramokgopa said. 

READ | Minister Ramokgopa calls on G20 to serve as ‘beacon of hope’
– SAnews.gov.za