After having worked as a security guard for just over two years, Andile* was stunned to learn last week that his employment was being terminated and that his employer had only contributed R2,500 towards his pension.
Andile is among 38 workers from Calvin and Family Security Services, who were served with notices of termination last week by the company, which is owned by controversial Durban businessman Calvin Mojalefa Mathibeli.
Mathibeli runs the company with his actress wife Simangele, who is its CEO. He was ordered by the Durban high court last month to remove defamatory social media posts and retract allegations of corruption against KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi.
The company’s Durban offices were raided by police in February, and firearms, computers and hard drives were taken following allegations of a fraudulent tender using suspect documents.
The business was recently flagged by the DA in Gauteng after it scored a R234m three-year tender to guard the Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital in Soweto.
Andile’s pension statement from Salt Employee Benefits, which he received last week, shows that Calvin and Family Security has only made four contributions in the last 25 months. The last payment of R611 was in April last year. The company has been deducting R416 from his monthly salary, and to date he only has a pension credit of R2,584.
Had the company been paying consistently, Andile’s pension would be well over R15,000, including interest, according to Sowetan’s calculations.
However, on Tuesday, Mathibeli said: “The company is fully compliant with its payroll obligations. All salaries are paid on time, and all required contributions to the provident fund are made accordingly. At no point has the company defaulted on these obligations.”
Salt, the administrator of the Private Security Sector Provident Fund, painted a different picture.
“Calvin and Family Security Services is currently non-compliant in terms of its statutory obligation to pay over provident fund contributions on behalf of its employees for multiple periods,” Salt said. “The most recent payment received was on 21 April 2026, which covered only a portion of the total outstanding amount owed. The fund has received numerous queries from employees regarding their unpaid contributions.”
Salt said 135 determinations have been issued to date by the office of the Pension Funds Adjudicator against the company following complaints by staff.
Security companies have been in the spotlight recently over nonpayment of pension contributions. In September, the Financial Sector Conduct Authority revealed that the private security sector accounted for 59% (349,335) of the 592,000 members affected by arrear contributions nationally.
Another Bara guard said their problems started when they were not given proper contracts.
“We never signed any contracts, just the guidelines of work,” he said. “Every time we have asked for it, we are told they are working on it. The employer has now terminated our contract because we have raised issues on salary increases and our pension contributions.”
Another guard said he encountered issues with the company last year when he had a bereavement and wanted to claim from funeral benefit.
“I understood I had a funeral benefit, but when I went to Salt, they claimed there was no money in my account. They said the company had to first pay the arrears before they could give me the money. A year later, they still have not processed that money.”
The guards said when they raise these issues, they are often dismissed, and even the union that was forced on them is nowhere to be found when they have complaints.
“The termination of employment is a way to silence us. Can he [Mathibeli] pay us our salary increases and pension money at least before letting us go?” one guard asked.
Mathibeli has rejected the allegations. “Claims of unfair dismissals, unpaid salaries, and missing provident fund contributions are categorically false,” he said.
On union matters, Mathibeli said the company operates under a closed-shop agreement with a majority union and denied that employees were forced to join.
Mathibela cited operational challenges, including alleged inappropriate relationships between some security staff and hospital employees, which he said affected disciplinary processes.
He also accused the guards of colluding with syndicates which steal cars at Bara.
*Not his real name
Sowetan
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