• Several municipalities across the country have defaulted on paying workers’ pension contributions to their respective pension funds.
• Finance Minister Tito Mboweni said municipalities in the Free State, North West and Northern Cape were mostly affected by the default in pension fund contributions.
• The DA said it would lay charges against the involved municipal officials.

While governance failures have all but decimated some of the country’s poorest municipalities, errant officials have not been paying millions in employer contributions to workers’ pension funds, a parliamentary reply has revealed.

Due to the failure to transfer pension fund contributions, about 1 600 municipal employees’ pensions have lapsed, and 64 employees are unable to retire because they are precluded from accessing retirement funds.

Cillier Brink, the DA’s spokesperson on local government, said the party would be lodging criminal complaints against the municipal officials involved.

“Hundreds of millions in interest has also accrued on these outstanding pension transfers – effectively for the account of residents and ratepayers,” Brink added. In a reply to a parliamentary question from DA MP Samantha Graham, Finance Minister Tito Mboweni revealed the Free State, North West and Northern Cape were mostly affected by the default in pension fund contributions.

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