The Financial Services Tribunal (FST) has blocked an estranged husband from benefiting from his late wife’s estate and handed it to her two children.
The tribunal concluded that Alexander Moshimane Molokwane had failed to prove financial dependency on his late wife, Cynthia Thandi Ndlovu, who died in August 2019 and left a R1.1m death benefit.
Ndlovu’s pension fund, the Discovery Retirement Annuity Fund, initially allocated the death benefit equally between Molokwane and the Ndlovu’s two children, Onkgopotse and Keabetswe. After an objection by the children, the fund reallocated the death benefit to them.
Molokwane laid a complaint with the Pension Fund Adjudicator (PFA). He submitted that he was entitled to a portion of the benefit as he was the surviving spouse of the deceased, and that the fund failed to exercise its discretion fairly.
He added that the fund had also failed to consider that, even though he and the deceased were separated at the time of her death, he was her dependent in that Ndlovu paid for all of his lifestyle expenses.
However, the PFA took a different view.
In coming to its decision, the PFA considered that Molokwane was estranged from Ndlovu, who had filed a protection order against him. She had also lodged divorce proceedings against him, and the bank statements he provided failed to show any financial support from her from the time they were separated until her death.
Ndlovu’s niece confirmed that the deceased’s only dependents were her children.
The PFA dismissed Molokwane’s application, which led him to escalate the matter to the FST, which noted that he had received a R1.5m payout from the Road Accident Fund and had failed to produce evidence of his financial dependency on his late wife.
The FST dismissed his application for reconsideration.
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