Reading mule variables from property file in Mule 4

I have a scenario where there is a variable defined in my mule flow. In the properties file, there is a property which is a String including the variable defined in the flow. When reading the property from property file, rather than replacing the variable by its value, it is printing it as a text. Mule runtime version is 4.2.2. This works as expected in Mule 3.x but facing issue in 4.x version.

<flow name="sample-testFlow1" doc:id="4138e351-316b-40af-a694-c416b5dc317f" >
<http:listener doc:name="Listener" doc:id="424c82c0-3e23-4f61-8e9b-62ec69711493" config-ref="HTTP_Listener_config" path="/test2"/>
<set-variable value='#["EmployeeCode"]' doc:name="Set Variable" doc:id="45bd2007-907b-4749-af14-001ad2cf82a6" variableName="testVariable"/>
<ee:transform doc:name="Transform Message" doc:id="e23dff81-a4e7-4d26-8f9e-b533442ddd5b" >
    <ee:message >
        <ee:set-payload ><![CDATA[%dw 2.0 output application/java --- p('test.prop')]]>/ee:set-payload>
        </ee:message>
    </ee:transform>
</flow>

Property File:

test.prop=Hello!Variable is #[vars.testVariable]

Expected Output: Hello!Variable is EmployeeCode

But getting as : Hello!Variable is #[vars.testVariable]

Any help is much appreciated.

Thank you.