Johannesburg - Cosatu’s retail and services affiliate, Saccawu, has failed to meet the deadline to pay about R30 million it owes to its liquidated investment company, and now faces liquidation itself.
The South African Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union, which has over 170 000 members, was meant to pay the money by close of business on Monday.
But the curator of the Saccawu National Provident Fund (SNPF), Anthony Mostert, said the union’s leaders had not delivered by 5pm.
This means that liquidators now have the option to go to court to get the cash from Saccawu, and the union may be declared insolvent.
“I am trying to prevent liquidation. It would be a social and political problem. But the union’s co-operation will be required,” Mostert said.
Saccawu does not even have money in its bank account.
Last month, after the union lost its last legal battle in the Constitutional Court to try to stop paying the cash, Mostert attached and froze its bank account, which had a sum of R3.5m in it.
The union’s staffers are now panicking that they will not be paid their salaries on March 25. Their cellphones have been disconnected because Vodacom has not been paid.
“I had a terrible weekend. I’m worried that I won’t get my salary at the end of the month,” said a union official who did not want to be named.
The official told The Star that the union’s leaders had met a number of service providers, including Old Mutual, to bail it out. He was not able to say how much money was raised, if any.
Saccawu has been in trouble for more than a decade, fighting numerous court battles over the misappropriation of money since the SNPF was placed under curatorship by the Financial Services Board (FSB) in 2002.
Its legal battle to avoid paying back the millions it was being sued for by Saccawu Investment Holdings, a liquidated company which siphoned provident fund money back to the union, ended in the Constitutional Court last month.
Up until now, the union has refused to repay loans irregularly taken from the provident fund.
Its argument in court had been that the money was not loans, but donations.
But the courts found that Saccawu was being economical with the truth to avoid paying taxes.
Since 2002, Mostert has uncovered tens of millions of rand of dodgy dealings involving the union and companies linked to it.
In an effort to prevent Saccawu’s liquidation, Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi has stepped in and asked the FSB to intervene.
Legally this might be an issue as the FSB does not have any jurisdiction because a curator has been appointed.
But Vavi, who did not want to go into detail, said: “I can confirm that I have spoken to the FSB and we should be able to work around that issue… I am hopeful.”
The union’s leaders could not be reached for comment on what they now plan to do as their cellphones have been disconnected.
Efforts were made to try to contact them at their head office in Joburg, but The Star was informed that none of them were in.
If the union does fold, it would leave tens of thousands of workers unprotected in a sector that is increasingly facing retrenchments and bosses who opt for casual labour.
The Star