More than 100 current and former G4S Secure Solutions workers marched to the National Prosecuting Authority last Tuesday demanding that the country’s prosecution authority hand them a letter which would allow them to privately prosecute their own employer G4S for using what amounts to “criminal tactics” regarding a Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) agreement.
The demanded letter, known in legal terms as the nolle prosequi, is a certificate which is issued by the NPA to an aggrieved person or persons to privately take the person against whom they have a grievance to court if the NPA has shown no interest in prosecuting the alleged wrong-doer.
The aggrieved workers gathered near the Koedoespoort railway station in Tshwane before marching to the NPA headquarters a few kilometres away in Silverton while in the process singing and dancing.
According to one of the former workers Johannes Masemola who is the Spokesperson of the aggrieved workers, the said BBBEE deal was signed in 2005 between them as employees of G4S and the company whereby they were given a 13% shareholding in the company through the G4s Staff Share Trust.
“In March.2014, July 2017, June 2021 and October 2021 we embarked on different marches to express our grievances regarding lack of payment of our dividends and the BB BEE Comission received our grievances during those times and ultimately ruled that G4S Secure Solutions, which is a subsidiary of British private security firm G4s Global, engaged in a misrepresentation of its BEE status, which is an offence: fronting,” he explained.
Masemola revealed that the commission found that G4S Secure Solutions consistently claimed full BEE points for 13% share owned by the workers through the trust.
And that the deal resulted in the workers only owning the said shares on paper but with no access to the relevant information relating to the shares.
“There are people who died not having seen the money that was due to them in terms of the said BBBEE deal and as we march we know that wherever they are, they are also still seeking answers from the NPA for failing to prosecute G4S officials who swindled their own workers of money that they should have pay a long time ago,” lamented Masemola..
“Fronting is a criminal offence, the company failed to amend the trust deed, workers did not appoint their own trustees, the company itself appointed two corrupt trustees that failed the employees and the BBBEE commission even failed the employees who reported the fronting case to them,by not including them when they were busy with their investigation into this matter,”said a fuming Masemola.
“The commission must take the matter to National Treasury for the purpose of black listing G4S for corruption, there must be punitive measures that are taken against the directors and executives of G4S and a worrying factor here is that employees who reported the company to BEE for that criminal offence were not paid but 192 of them were instead dismissed for exposing the truth, and the so-called apology that was written by G4S for its shenanigans was merely a curtain blinder intended to hide the truth and continue with corruption,” said Masemola as he in the process pointed out their voices shall not be shaken until what was signed upon happens regarding their G4S Staff Share Trust.
He said all that they want is for the NPA to release the nolle prosequi certificate so that they can hire their own private investigators so that they can get their dividends as originally promised by G4S.
Some workers also talked about their suffering and how it’s affected them badly ever since and many former workers said they were hoping the money would be paid soon but that has not happened and that they would have done a lot for their kids had that happened.
At the NPA offices the aggrieved workers’ memorandum was received and signed by Advocate Marika van Vuuren.
Advocate van Vuuren said the NPA will first collect the docket from the police and look at what is in the docket and get the reason from the prosecutor for declining to prosecute the matter.
She indicated that as national prosecuting authority they have the right to overturn a decision made by a prosecutor from a low court and appealed to the workers to give the NPA time to address this matter and if the workers are not satisfied about the decision that may be taken by the NPA, then it would only be then that they would receive the disputed nolle prosequi certificate.
Copy of Memorandum:
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