Durban - Some of the country’s lowest paid security guards are being robbed of R1.5 billion, over five years, by their bosses who are failing to pay over provident fund deductions and instead pocketing the money, according to the fund.
The Private Security Sector Provident Fund (PSSPF) - which administers the pension money deducted from the salary of guards - is now going after the more than 8 000 non-compliant security companies countrywide, calling their actions “exploitation” and “downright fraud”.
Next week, the fund, the Department of Labour, and Private Sector Industry Regulatory Authority (Psira), will hold information sharing sessions with thousands of security guards in Durban, Richards Bay, Port Shepstone, Pietermaritzburg and Newcastle on the issue.
The sessions will explain what action is being taken against companies that are defrauding guards by deducting provident fund contributions from their salaries but not passing on the money.
The fund’s spokesman, Jackson Simon, said more than 250 000 security guards’ contributions were not being received.
“The fund has 322 951 members with 2 395 companies contributing for their employees.”
However, Psira had 11 000 registered companies with 480 000 registered security employees.
“This clearly illustrates the severity of non-compliance in the security industry,” Simon said.
Simon said guards or their families often only found out they were not covered by a provident fund when a tragedy occurred.
“It’s either at death or disability that they sometimes find out the money they thought they had been contributing is not there. Many of them have pay slips reflecting that they are contributing, but the money is not paid over to the fund. We have now set up social networks and other information road shows telling people they should be checking their status and ensuring their contributions are indeed being paid over,” he said.
Jackson said that while they had made significant strides in getting some security employers to comply, the process was often long.
“When we find a non-compliant company, the law says we are to advise them within 30 days in writing of their actions. If they still do not comply, we must send them a reminder and, if they still do not comply, we issue a letter of demand and pass it on to our lawyers to litigate. Often some employers sign an acknowledgement of debt agreement and go from there. But there are those, despite us having a court order, that disappear and it is hard for us to trace them,” he said.
There were, according to statistics provided to the Daily News by the fund, 288 employers who had signed an acknowledgment of debt.
These companies owe the fund more than R200 million. To date the fund has received R111m in payments from them.
KwaZulu-Natal chairman of the South African Security Association (Sasa) and Enforce Security director, Gary Tintinger, said the security industry was one of the country’s biggest employers.
He said that while the bigger security companies were compliant, the vast majority were not.
“Those that do not comply with legislation are essentially exploiting their staff and are deceitful. There are many companies out there who score really big contracts with major corporates and shopping centres and then employ security guards as subcontractors. They pay them a flat rate and there is no sick leave or benefits like provident fund. They even make the guards pay for their own uniforms,” he said.
Tintinger said much of the non-compliance was fuelled by corporates who wanted security on the cheap.
“When Sasa finds that a company has been awarded a big contract and is not complying with legislation, we try to get them to comply and we have had success. But the corporates are to blame for the exploitation because they want cheaper services.
“Do you think that a security guard who knows he is being underpaid is going to give world class service and resist criminal syndicates? The irony is they want security to protect their multibillion- rand asset, but they want to pay as little as possible for it and, in so doing, are creating even more risk.”
Daily News