I am in the process of winding up a private security contract we had with a single client.
The legal consultation/retrenchment process is currently underway. I was unaware (no excuses) of a determination which allegedly requires contributions and membership of a provident fund for all the workers. I have always offered to set up such a scheme but the employees refused. As a result, I have not registered, nor did we make any deductions from the salaries. My questions are:
- Can employees opt out of the Security Industry provident fund?
- If I register now and make the contributions going back a few years, could the employee contributions now be deducted from final settlements, as they have not “paid” their contributions at all anyway?
Thanks in advance.
E