8 months of delayed pension payout (GEPF), Lack of Communication and Interest to Assist.

My mom has invested over 30 years of her pension fund and now its been over 8 months that we have been sent from pillar to post just to get her pension. I have been making following up from May 2017 to no luck. She personally submitted her documents at NW Education Department 2 months before her actually early retirement date. She finished on the 31 March 2017. It has been 8 months of struggle between NW Education and GEPF just to finalise her case. We have made countless enquiries, been told that the documents are at Contribution division, next we were told the documents have been sent back to HR (NW Education) as either of the following was happening: - ID copy was not attached; some of the pages on the documents were missing, some documents are not attached, documents are not visible, documents are mixed up with other official's documents. NW Education has mentioned that the new online system GEPF has introduced is a challenge and they cooperating with GEPF while Pension Fund is telling a different story. Evidently, this pay out will drag if no intervention is done. The documents have been up and down with the same problem from May 2017 of which there seem to be NO solution for it. I have requested to personally collect the documents from NW Education and take them to GEPF as the system is failing us of which I was refused. I have made a follow up with GEPF yesterday (31-10-2017) and it was confirmed that the document are being processed. This morning (01-11-2017) the documents have been sent back with the same error encountered from May 2017. NW Education cannot even check for if they have received the documents because they are currently OFFLINE and have been since Monday (meaning no productivity) since and there are few employees to assist as the rest have gone home. I have really exhausted all my attempts to get what is due to my mom. She does not have medical aid (all the contribution gone down the drain, no income, policies that she paid for over decades have lapsed- (all the money she invested), my mom is emotionally and physically drained and the list endless. Can someone please assist....advise....

Ms Ramoshaba