Speed of GEPF fund services ‘not on par’

GEORGE NEWS - The Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF) has launched a self-service app in March this year where members can register to enable them to easily access and update their information.

With the app they can obtain documents such as pension increase letters, estimate benefit statements and more, without calling or visiting GEPF offices.

However, trying to get one's own information through the GEPF call centre is extremely frustrating and time-consuming, as Anna-Marie Fry, a Georgian and member, can testify. She became concerned when she did not receive her pension increase letter which usually arrives about two weeks into April, the month of their annual increase.

Members use this letter as proof of income. Many efforts over a month's time to contact the call centre failed, as there was no answer. A number of other retirees complained to her about the same problem.

After an enquiry from George Herald through the GEPF communications department, Fry soon received her pension increase letter via e-mail.

GEPF senior manager of communications Mack Lewele said pension increase letters are sent on e-mail for some pensioners and postal services for others, depending on the data they have in their possession.

"The reasons for the delays vary from wrong e-mail or wrong postal address, people who change any of these and perhaps forget to update their details with us, etc. We continue to work hard to improve our database in this regard."

Regarding the calls that are not answered at the call centre, Lewele said, "The nature of the call centre industry is that many people wait for a long period before they are answered and some drop the call a few minutes before they are answered because they have been waiting for too long. This is not preferable, but a reality of this service, particularly with a larger size organisation such as ours."

He said the GEPF is working hard to introduce measures to improve its capacity, including increasing personnel and creating an outbound call centre service, that is, if a client drops a call, they can identify them and call them back.