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Pensioners follow proceedings during a meeting at Sizinda Hall in Bulawayo yesterday

Pamela Shumba Senior Reporter
PENSIONERS have expressed dissatisfaction over the conversion of their money into United States dollars by pension funds and insurance companies when the country adopted a multi-currency regime in 2009.

Pensioners who attended a public hearing on the commission of inquiry into the conversion of insurance and pension value of contributions from Zimbabwe dollars into United States dollars in Bulawayo yesterday told commissioners that they felt duped after working for years.

President Robert Mugabe constituted the commission of inquiry in August in a bid to establish how insurance and pension values were converted from the Zim dollar to the US dollar that became legal tender in 2009, with a view of coming up with a conversion formula that ensures fairness for all parties.

Presenting their cases to the commissioners, pensioners said they got peanuts, while others said they got nothing at all from their former employers. They cited irregularities in the method used to convert their benefits.

Lovemore Muzumbi, a former Zupco employee, said he received $30 from Fidelity Life Insurance Company after working for 23 years. “My former colleagues and I were referred from one office to the other and we spent more than a year following up on our pay-outs. We were shocked when the insurance company deposited $30 in our accounts yet we expected between $3,000 and $4,000. This was despite the fact that our grades and years of service were different. We’ve been trying, with no luck, to get reasonable amounts of money from the company,” said Muzumbi.

Thembeka Sibanda, a widow whose late husband worked for Ingwebu Breweries for 35 years, said she had not received anything from the company.

“I spent several years trying to get my husband’s pension. They told me that they were still doing their calculations to see how much they owed my husband. I was later told that the company didn’t owe me anything because all the money had been wiped away by inflation,” said Sibanda.

Siboniso Hadebe, a former Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education official who served for 35 years, said she got a paltry $4,000. “I still wonder how they did their calculations and came up with that figure. I worked for too long to get a paltry $4,000,” she said.

Another pensioner, Albert Dzingai, who worked for Merlin for 13 years, said he got only $5 from his former employer as his pension.

The commission’s team leader George Dikinya said the commissioners would conduct public hearings in all the country’s 10 provinces before they submit their findings and recommendations to the Office of the President through the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development.

He said the inquiry was a critical process meant to establish the loss of value associated with the conversion process.

“All the contributions, complaints and appeals will be taken seriously and will be considered as we do our investigations of service providers such as insurance companies and pension funds. However, the commission will not address individual complaints or appeals, but will come up with recommendations at national level,” said Dikinya.

He said he was happy with the high turnout by Bulawayo pensioners and urged those in other provinces to attend the hearings. “This is our third public hearing and I’m happy with the massive turnout here in Bulawayo. The first was in Harare and we conducted the second in Victoria Falls. The next hearing is in Gwanda before we proceed to Gweru and other provinces. This is an important exercise and I want to encourage all pensioners to attend the public hearings,” said Dikinya.

Pensioners from both the government and the private sector attended the hearing.