A Committee of former Rössing Uranium Limited employees says numerous requests to have meetings with the Rössing Pension Fund Trust and the company have fallen on deaf ears despite a formula reached on the distribution of the pension fund's surplus.

The surplus pension is reportedly to be paid out in August.

Legal advice received by the workers is that only a High Court interdict can stop the distribution, but these workers say they may not have enough money to take the legal route.

The former workers say they have never been involved in the consultation process.

The fund trustees and Rössing Uranium Limited arrived at a decision on April 1 that 15 per cent of the surplus should go to the former employees.

A further 33 per cent goes to the company to fund about three years of company contributions towards the pension fund, two per cent is to go towards members' contributions to the pension fund, and 50 per cent goes to current members and pensioners.

This means that former members get about N$61,9 million. The principal officer of the pension fund, Erich Beukes, earlier said there are about 5 000 to 10 000 former members, which would mean that former employees can get between N$6 000 and N$12 000 from the surplus distribution.

It would also mean that the company stands to get about N$136 million, more than N$8 million would go to members' contributions over three years, and more than N$206 million goes to current members and pensioners.

Questions were raised about the allocations to be made to the company. A document on the distribution formula stated that the company carries the risk of having to make up future deficits if the pension fund underperforms.

The former members had a meeting with the Namibia Financial Institutions Supervisory Authority (Namfisa) to express their dissatisfaction with the manner in which the decision has been made.

They demanded the formation of a formal platform where all parties can come together to discuss the surplus distribution.

The Khomas representative of the former workers' committee, Engelhardt #Unaeb, said the request for an open discussion is aimed at ensuring an equal and fair distribution.

"My concern is that we are regarded as intruders," said #Unaeb. "Many of us were retrenched, not because we wanted to be retrenched. Many have suffered because they could not find any other employment afterwards. We have compromised to make provision for the company to continue. That must be looked at and people need to be treated fairly."

Namfisa wrote to the committee on June 8 to say that it did not approve the actual surplus apportionment among concerned parties, saying that this is at the sole discretion of the fund's board of trustees.

Namfisa said it has no legal authority to directly or indirectly influence or determine the distribution model to be applied in distributing surpluses.

\#Unaeb said the committee of former employees will ask for the intervention of the finance and labour ministries.