If your employer makes it a condition of service that you belong to a pension fund or a provident fund, your employer has a duty to ensure that you remain a member of that fund for as long as you are in its permanent employment.
Mamodupi Mohlala, the Pension Funds Adjudicator (PFA), recently ruled that a complainant, W Mabale, and his employer, Feedmix, had to pay arrear contributions to the Feedmix Provident Fund (FPF) after Mabale complained that he had not been a member of any pension fund for five years.
Mabale, a permanent, full-time employee of Feedmix, was a member of the FPF until March 2000, when Mabale and some of his fellow employees told Feedmix that they wanted to join another retirement fund, which they did not name.
Feedmix rejected their request, but, when threatened with a strike, subsequently agreed to grant it.
Mabale then "resigned" from Feedmix and was paid a withdrawal benefit from the FPF. He was then re-employed on April 1, 2000, but was no longer a member of the company's provident fund.
In March 2004, Mabale and some of his colleagues indicated to Feedmix that they wanted to join an umbrella provident fund. Feedmix refused to agree to this, because the majority of its employees wanted to remain with the FPF.
Financially prejudiced
In March 2005, Mabale lodged a complaint with the PFA, saying he should be allowed to join a retirement fund of his choice.
Mabale claimed he had been financially prejudiced because he had not belonged to a retirement fund since March 2000.
Mabale requested that he be paid all Feedmix's arrear contributions since March 2000 or be allowed to transfer the arrear contributions to a retirement fund of his choice.
Mohlala ruled that employers are not compelled to set up retirement funds for their employees, so Mabale's complaint that he should be allowed to join the fund of his choice was dismissed.
The portion of his complaint relating to non-membership of a retirement fund between April 2000 and February 2002 was rejected, because more than three years passed before Mabale lodged a complaint with the PFA, and he did not provide a good reason for the delay.
According to the FPF's rules, it was compulsory for Mabale, as a full-time, permanent employee, to be a member of the fund. The rules further stated that it was the duty of the employer to ensure that Mabale was a member of the fund.
The adjudicator ordered Feedmix to pay all the arrear employer contributions for Mabale that it should have paid to the FPF from March 2002 to date.
The company was also ordered to pay returns on the arrear contributions.
However, Mabale was also ordered to pay all arrear fund member contributions from March 2002 to date.