Sowetan Live writes that the Joburg high court has dismissed Mafoko Security Patrollers’ attempt to block former employees from attaching company assets to recover pension funds owed to workers for over five years. The company which employs over 11,000 security guards across the country owes workers R151m in pension contributions to the private security sector provident fund (PSSPF). According to the company’s website its clients include provincial health departments in Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, SABC, Joburg City Parks, Eskom, OR Tambo Airport and several tertiary institutions around the country.
It has been alleged in court papers that the company had been deducting around R330 a month from workers’ salaries for pensions but failed to pay it to the fund. The ruling empowers the 144 former employees to attach the company’s assets to recoup monies owed to them. Labour union Satawu has welcomed the ruling as a victory for labour rights. Pension Fund Adjudicator’s office, said as of April 14, Mafoko was in arrears of R151m in unpaid pension contributions for some of its 11,000 workers, mostly security personnel, deployed to guard government properties across different provinces.
Mafoko represented by director Lebo Nare prayed to court to halt the execution of writs issued by the PSSF and the adjudicator to attach its assets. Nare also asked the court to set aside their determinations and to recalculate the arrear amounts determined the PSSF on behalf of the workers. Mafoko argued that attaching and auctioning their computer servers would compromise the security of the state entities they guard.
Nare said claimed in his application that his company had serviced the R20m arrear debt it had with the PSSPF in 2016 and had signed the Acknowledgement of Debt. The company said some of the extra funds it paid were sitting in the PSSPF account and were unaccounted for. However in an affidavit filed by Wanda Ndabeni, an administrator from adjudicator, she accused the company of ignoring determinations made on complaints by workers and of abusing the legal system. She said the company only paid R16m towards their debt.
“The applicant has committed fraud and a statutory offence in terms of the Pension Funds Act in the amount of over R151,011,271.68 … I submit that the applicant’s conduct amounts to an abuse of the above honourable court’s process,” she said. Nare did not respond to a media inquiry sent to his personal assistant yesterday.
In dismissing Mafoko’s application Judge JM Berger said: “In each case, once the relevant determination was filed with the Registrar of this Court, the former employee in question sought and obtained a writ of execution. It was at that point, in each case, that Mafoko finally responded, approaching this court for urgent interdictory.”
He said in so far as the Fund’s calculations were concerned, Mafoko did not set out any basis upon which such “decisions” are reviewable. Anele Kiet, SATAWU deputy general secretary of the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union, described the judgment as a victory for workers. “It gives hope that at least our courts do consider the workers,” he said, but added hat he was concerned that Mafoko might not repaying the workers because [it] “does not even show any remorse in terms of its actions”.
by Lindile Sifile and Jeanette Chabalala