Nicola Mawson|Published
More than six in 10 employers participating in the Private Security Sector Provident Fund (PSSPF) remain non-compliant, according to the fund itself, as the Pension Funds Adjudicator reports 6,453 complaints involving the scheme in a single year.
In a communication to employers, the PSSPF acknowledges that “over 61% of employers” remain non-compliant when it comes to paying over funds, while thanking companies that pay pension contributions and submit contribution schedules on time.
The fund says timely contributions ensure that retirement, withdrawal, disability and death benefits can be processed and paid without delay.
The admission comes alongside criticism from the Office of the Pension Funds Adjudicator (OPFA), whose 2025/26 annual report identifies serious weaknesses in the fund’s monitoring of employers and its response to unpaid contributions.
The PSSPF accounted for 49% of the 13,041 complaints received by the adjudicator during the financial year, making it responsible for almost as many complaints as all other retirement funds combined.
Adjudicator weighs in
The most prevalent complaints involved employers failing to pay over pension contributions deducted from security guards’ salaries. Other recurring problems included unpaid retirement benefits, delays in processing withdrawals and inaccurate member records.
But the adjudicator also places responsibility on the fund for failing to identify and address employer non-compliance.
“Governance weaknesses have come to the fore, including the lack of an effective system to monitor and detect non-payment of contributions by employers resulting in a failure to timeously act against delinquent employers,” the report states.
It adds: “Members are left to fend for themselves by individually pursuing non-payment of contributions whilst the fund neglects its duties prescribed in FSCA Conduct Standard 1 of 2022.”
The fund’s acknowledgement that more than 61% of employers are non-compliant does not specify how many are failing to pay contributions, as opposed to breaching other administrative requirements.
However, its communication explicitly links employer compliance to paying contributions and submitting schedules on time.
By the numbers
The adjudicator’s findings also show that the PSSPF accounted for 75.6% of cases in which relief was granted among the 20 retirement funds listed in its analysis.
Across the retirement fund industry, employer non-payment of contributions accounted for 61.48% of complaints investigated and closed during 2025/26, while withdrawal benefits accounted for another 22.93%.
Together, the two categories represented approximately 84% of closed complaint categories.
The report says these complaints frequently overlap, with employees sometimes discovering that their employers have failed to pay pension contributions only when they attempt to withdraw their benefits.
The implementation of South Africa’s two-pot retirement system in September 2024 has brought some of these problems to the surface.
The system allows retirement fund members to withdraw a portion of their savings before retirement, but the adjudicator says attempts to access benefits have exposed outstanding contributions, inaccurate member records and administrative failures.
The OPFA received a record 13,041 complaints during the financial year, up 26% from 10,331 the previous year.
The adjudicator warns that unpaid contributions can affect more than retirement savings. Death, disability and funeral benefits may also be compromised when the premiums supporting these benefits are not paid.
Cold comfort
In a separate notice to members, the PSSPF says its administrator, Salt Employee Benefits, began contacting paid-up and dormant members from 2 March 2026 to assist them in claiming savings held in the fund.
The outreach programme concerns access to existing benefits and does not address the adjudicator’s findings on unpaid employer contributions.
The OPFA also warns that delays in enforcing compliance can limit the recovery of outstanding contributions because of prescription and time-barring rules.
Changes introduced in January 2026 empower labour inspectors to enforce certain requirements relating to pension contributions, while proposed amendments to labour legislation could extend enforcement powers to the CCMA, Labour Court and bargaining councils.
During 2025/26, the adjudicator finalised a record 11,047 complaints and issued monetary orders totalling approximately R99.76 million.
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