The Government Pensions Administration Agency (GPAA) has confirmed that that more than 60,000 public sector employees have made applications to make withdrawals from their savings pot of the two-pot retirement system.

According to the GPAA, the Government Employees Pension Fund (GEFP) has received a little under 63,000 two-pot retirement system applications since September 1, 2024.

In terms of two-pot retirement system enquiries, the GPAA said it has received a high number of applications from its members, which include teachers, nurses, police officers and other public officials in the civil service.

Mack Lewele, Senior Manager, GPAA told IOL:

“We experience high numbers of applications daily and are attending to them as they come. We are happy to announce that our system is coping with the load.”

The amounts that people want to withdraw from their savings pots varies from person to person and depends on a personal choice as well as what each individual qualifies for or has in their savings pot.

Lewele said that the general trend is that most people claim for the maximum amount possible, which is R30,000.

Handling two-pot retirement system claims

According to the GPAA, they have taken steps to improve the process of managing two-pot retirement system claims.

“We have enhanced our system capabilities to ensure that they can manage the increased load for two-pot system, as well as our normal pension administration processes.” Lewele said.

“We are aware of members who have problems accessing the system and the GPAA teams and Client Relationship Management (CRM) are attending to the queries and complaints.”

According to Lewele, part of attending to this query in particular is the process which is underway of developing an mailbox solely focused on queries relating only to Two Pot System as well as having agents helping clients on site.

Meanwhile, IOL ran a reader engagement survey on Facebook on Thursday, and our readers told us they would be using their cash from the two pot system to buy furniture and appliances, mostly.

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