By Theodorah waga Mawasha
Employees of Great North Transport (GNT) are at loggerheads with the company after the alleged disappearance of funds meant for pension payouts mysteriously went missing from company’s coffers.
Several current and former employees are thus, said to be left in limbo. Allegations that R300 million is missing and was used as cash flow to fund the operations of the company, which is an entity of the Limpopo Economic Development Agency (LEDA) have also come to the fore.
In light of this development, political organizations such as Action SA have written to the Hawks Special Investigation Unit (SIU) to lay criminal charges. Party spokesperson Sello Lediga said in a statement that this is a “sad state of affairs”.
“We call for an investigation as GNT failed to pay its employees’ contributions to the pension fund administrator. Short payments were made in a period of 17 years despite deductions being made from their salaries, which is a breach of the pension funds Act 24 of 1956”, read the statement.
GNT HR manager David Mokwena said that the allegations are unfounded and that it’s a smear campaign.
“This is not true. We call upon anyone with concrete information to come forth and corroborate the allegations. Alexander Forbes was the administrator. When they terminated their contract with GNT, workers became uncertain and made unnecessary demands. There is no mismanagement of funds”, Mokwena said.
