John Murphy, the Pension Funds Adjudicator, says he has lost control over many of the retirement fund complaints received by his office because of a lack of resources.
Professor Murphy's appointment by the Financial Services Board as from the beginning of this year unleashed a flood of complaints from the public about their retirement funds.
His appointment signalled fresh hope for many disgruntled present and former members of retirement funds, who were unable to get any joy through having their problems solved either by their retirement funds or employers.
Murphy has single-handedly been burning the midnight oil trying to get through the backlog of complaints which has now built up to 681 in his first seven months of office.
The applications are arriving at his doorstep at a rate of about five or six a day and each is about 50 pages long.
"Just reading all this information, is enough to keep me busy every day," he says.
Of the applications received so far, he has finalised 50 cases, and about 500 are in progress.
Many of the cases get to the point where a hearing must be scheduled and stall there.
Of still more concern to Murphy is the backlog of cases which have been heard but for which he must write determinations.
Ideally these should be written with the evidence freshly heard. But Murphy is having to make do with one office assistant.
His budget was recently increased by about R180 000 to R1 million a year, which will allow him to appoint an attorney and a halfday secretary, but this is still way short of the resources he needs.
Light at the end of the tunnel is that the Financial Services Board has requested that Murphy draw up a business plan for his office.
Additional funds for the running of the office must be granted to him by the board, which in turn will have to collect from the retirement fund industry in the form of a levy.
Murphy says he should have a staff of 12 people and a budget of R15 million a year. His office receives about 120 cases a month.
By comparison, Selby Baqwa, the Public Protector, is asking for an additional R31 million in funds for his office which is staffed by 24 people and receives about 240 complaints a month from the public.