A protracted legal battle between security company Mafoko Security Patrols and scores of its former security guards has reached a strange impasse, with workers still waiting for their retirement contributions despite a recent High Court order meant to break the deadlock.
The Johannesburg High Court ruled on February 18 that money recovered through writs of execution against Mafoko must be paid directly into the Private Security Sector Provident Fund (PSSPF) rather than to the bank accounts of the workers or their attorneys.
Acting Judge Stephen van Nieuwenhuizen granted the urgent order by consent of the parties, effectively amending existing writs linked to determinations by the pension fund adjudicator.
“All writs issued in terms of the pension fund adjudicator determinations in favour of the fund are hereby amended to direct that all moneys recovered under the said writs shall be paid directly to the fund and not the employees or their attorneys,” the court ruled.
The order followed years of litigation triggered by Mafoko’s failure to pay provident fund contributions deducted from workers’ wages.
Despite the ruling, the dispute appears far from resolved.
One of the lawyers representing former employees says Mafoko has yet to deposit the outstanding money into the fund or provide a schedule indicating how much is owed and to whom.
Masilo Fisha, who represents about 30 affected former guards and now also acts for the fund, said the company’s continued delays have left workers frustrated after years of the legal back and forth.
“They were the ones who said they didn’t trust the attorneys and wanted the money paid directly to the fund. The court said, ‘Very well, pay the fund.’ But they still haven’t done it,” Fisha told Sunday World.
The dispute has produced multiple rounds of litigation. In four nearly identical applications lodged in the Johannesburg High Court in 2023, Mafoko sought to halt enforcement of rulings issued by the adjudicator in favour of the former employees. The workers had approached the adjudicator after discovering that provident fund contributions deducted from their salaries over several years had not been properly paid into the retirement fund.
Once the determinations were registered as court judgments, writs of execution were issued to recover the outstanding amounts.
Mafoko then approached the court seeking to review the adjudicator’s rulings, challenge the provident fund’s calculations and have the disputes reheard from scratch. The court dismissed the applications in a consolidated judgment delivered in March last year.
Acting Judge JM Berger found that Mafoko had ignored the adjudicator’s proceedings and failed to use the six-week legal window available to challenge the determinations.
Berger also rejected the company’s attempt to withdraw the cases during the hearing, warning that doing so would leave similar disputes unresolved and prolong workers’ struggles to access their retirement savings.
The applications were dismissed with costs.
Mafoko’s lawyer, Advocate Isiah Mureriwa, told Sunday World the company was not refusing to pay but needed to reconcile figures first. “We did make an application to court, and yes, we wanted the collections to go to the fund and not the employees, and the court agreed with us as per the order,” he said.
Mureriwa said further calculations were required because money collected under the writs had not yet been reflected in the fund’s records.
The case has drawn the attention of labour activists, who say it highlights deeper problems in South Africa’s private security industry.
Mafoko Security Patrols is a large private security provider with a national footprint and more than 6 000 employees across South Africa, according to company information published on its website.
Deputy pension funds adjudicator Naheem Essop, who was also one of the respondents in the February High Court order, previously noted that his office had received nearly 1 000 complaints from Mafoko security guards alleging that provident fund contributions deducted from their wages were not paid to the PSSPF.
Essop criticised Mafoko for failing to engage with adjudicator investigations and instead resorting to repeated High Court litigation, which he said prolongs workers’ struggles to recover their retirement savings.
South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said workers have already waited far too long for justice.
“Provident fund contributions are not a discretionary benefit. They are deferred wages earned through the labour of workers,” Vavi said. “When workers are forced to wait years to access these funds, the consequences are devastating.”
Vavi said the Mafoko dispute illustrates a wider pattern in the private security sector, which employs more than 550 000 guards but is plagued by low wages and frequent violations of labour obligations.
Saftu has estimated that the company may owe workers between about R111-million and R330-million in unpaid provident fund contributions, although the exact amount remains contested as calculations are still being reconciled through court processes and the fund’s records.
- A protracted legal battle between security company Mafoko Security Patrols and scores of its former security guards has reached a strange impasse, with workers still waiting for their retirement contributions despite a recent High Court order meant to break the deadlock.
- The Johannesburg High Court ruled on February 18 that money recovered through writs of execution against Mafoko must be paid directly into the Private Security Sector Provident Fund (PSSPF) rather than to the bank accounts of the workers or their attorneys.
- Acting Judge Stephen van Nieuwenhuizen granted the urgent order by consent of the parties, effectively amending existing writs linked to determinations by the pension fund adjudicator.
- “All writs issued in terms of the pension fund adjudicator determinations in favour of the fund are hereby amended to direct that all moneys recovered under the said writs shall be paid directly to the fund and not the employees or their attorneys,” the court ruled.
- The order followed years of litigation triggered by Mafoko’s failure to pay provident fund contributions deducted from workers’ wages.
