Major win for security guards who feared they’d never see their pensions

Judge slams Mafoko for antics that showed no will to resolve the matter

- By Tshwarelo eseng Mogakane

Former security guards who battled for years to access their hard-earned pension funds have scored a major legal victory after the Johannesburg High Court dismissed a last-ditch attempt by Mafoko Security Patrols to challenge the process.

The ruling, delivered by Acting Judge Jonathan Berger, ensures that the affected employees will finally receive the funds owed to them after Mafoko’s repeated failure to pay contributions to the Private Security Sector Provident Fund.

The case involved former employees who had been left in limbo after Mafoko ignored rulings by the Pension Funds Adjudicator (PFA) that found the company in breach of its legal obligations.

Despite clear determinations that the company owed pension contributions, Mafoko tried to block enforcement by challenging the calculations, an argument that the court dismissed outright.

“At the heart of each application was Mafoko’s repeated failure, in some cases over years, to pay contributions due on behalf of an employee to the fund,” Berger ruled, making it clear that the security company had failed its former workers.