NUMSA Financial Services (NFS) response to the Curator of Sizwe Medical Fund
July 04, 2013
NUMSA Financial Services (NFS) is flabbergasted by the mention of its name by the Curator of Sizwe Medical Fund (Sizwe), Dr Khaya Gobinca in a press statement released on Tuesday 02 July in the Business Day through his office. Dr Gobinca makes a statement that NUMSA (the Trade Union) has a business interest in Sizwe through NUMSA Financial Services ("NFS").
NFS is a subsidiary of NUMSA Investment Company ("NIC"), NIC in turn is owned by a Trust which exists in parallel to NUMSA (the Trade Union) and is governed by an independent Board of Directors. The relationship between NFS and NUMSA is that of service provider and client, albeit dedicated specifically to service the Healthcare and Financial Services needs of NUMSA members. The statement that NUMSA has a business interest in Sizwe is uninformed and unfortunate. NUMSA has a relationship with Sizwe that predates Dr Gobingca's appointment as Curator by several decades. In the past, many NUMSA members took strike action to enforce the recognition of Sizwe, giving it the opportunity to exist in its current form.
Regarding the deadlock between NFS and Sizwe on a brokerage contract with one of the employers, this matter was never taken to NUMSA for resolution; instead NFS presented the matter back to the members of NUMSA who appointed NFS to resolve the matter with the employer. The relationship between Dr Gobinca and NUMSA and Dr Gobinca and NFS is non-existent and for the record, no meeting can ever take place between Dr Gobinca and NFS. All previous meetings with him ended acrimoniously and we would not want to experience him again.
The details above are irrelevant to the current seemingly acrimonious relations between Sizwe members and the Curator. However it appears Dr Gobinca is attempting to deflect the issues that have been raised by Numsa and the members of Sizwe about his conduct since appointment as a Curator. Mphumzi Maqungo, who is a NUMSA National Treasurer and member of Sizwe, has championed the grievances raised by members of NUMSA regarding the actions of the Curator. Contrary to what Dr Gobinca says, NUMSA has been raising issues about Sizwe with the Registrar for a long time.
Irvin Jim, the General Secretary of Numsa, presented the Registrar with a dossier of evidence on what we considered to be unacceptable practices at Sizwe. That dossier formed the bases of the eventual Court bid by the Registrar that resulted in the Curatorship.
Dr Gobingca's claims of the legacy of Dr Motlana are mischievous as he intends to destroy that very legacy by terminating Sechaba's contract with Sizwe and merging Sizwe with another fund. His claims of improving reserves is devoid of truth as all medical schemes tend to improve their reserves before winter (summer is a low claims season), especially when contribution increases effected have been as high as he has raised for Sizwe.
The following are Dr Gobingca's misdemeanors since his appointment which he must answer to NUMSA members and all other members of Sizwe:
1. Dr Gobinca was appointed as Curator to replace both the Board and the Principal officer, however the appointment subjected him to the rules of the fund, Dr Gobinca has gone ahead to change the rules of the fund. Put differently, if the previous Board of Trustees was removed for not complying with the rules of the fund, then Dr Gobinca has gone beyond not complying with the same rules. That is really disingenuous.
2. Dr Gobinca raised the member contributions by 10.83%, against the rules of the fund that clearly state that an increase that is greater than CPI + 3% must approved by members in a special general meeting. Dr Gobinca went ahead and unilaterally implemented the increase without the members' consent.
3. Dr Gobinca has also significantly changed the benefit structure of one of the key schemes within NUMSA, and single handedly appointed new service providers.
4. Recently Dr Gobingca called for an AGM of Sizwe members, we are told that he walked out of the AGM and never returned. This is tantamount to the CEO and Chairman of the board walking out of a shareholders meeting. Dr Gobinca walked out of the meeting and proceeded to terminate the services of Sechaba Medicals Solutions, an extremely unusual series of events.
5. Dr Gobinca says he has decided to merge Sizwe with another Fund, something that was rumoured in the market and confirmed by the unusual attendance of the Curator of Medshield to the Sizwe AGM. The merger of the Scheme will require AGM approval, we are not sure how will he achieve that objective without the support of the members (seeing he has declared war on the members).
It would be beneficial for Dr Gobinca to call an urgent AGM and handover the scheme to the members that is what the office of the Registrar has been driving, member control of medical schemes.
Statement issued by Elias Phoba, Chief Executive, Numsa Financial Services, July 4 2013
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