80 unpaid workers protest

Felex Share Herald Reporter
MORE than 80 workers yesterday staged a sit-in protesting non-payment of their salaries and vowed to sleep at the site where they were trenching to lay communication cables in New Alexandra Park.Last night, the workers detained a vehicle their employer Mr David Malan had sent to ferry them from the work site to town insisting they would release it after getting their dues.

The workers claimed that Mr Malan was sub-contracted by Liquid Telecom to dig up the trenches and went on to recruit them after signing some contracts with them.

Mr Malan last night said he would pay the workers this morning and refused to disclose the name of his company.
“I am paying them first thing tomorrow morning, my brother,” he said before hanging up the phone.

The workers said they signed contracts of four months and were supposed to be paid weekly.
“After the first week in August, the employer reneged on his promise and told us that he would pay us on a monthly basis, but he only gave us US$10 each up to now,” said one of the workers, Nobert Mutambiranwa.

“We were dumped here and we have not eaten anything for the past two days. He has refused to meet us and is only sending his driver to talk to us hence the reason why we seized his car.”

“We told him that we wanted to attend President Mugabe’s inauguration last month, but he told us that the event had nothing to do with his work,” said another worker who identified himself as Mbanje.

“He told us that he lost his farm during the land reform programme and will never have respect for a person who championed such a programme. He also told us that as a result of the land reform programme, his wife dumped him as he was left with nothing.”

The workers said there was commotion on Tuesday night when Malan visited them and offered them US$2 each.
“This forced a senior Government official to come out of his house as we were disturbing his peace. Her tried to talk to the white man who later promised to pay us today (yesterday),” another worker said.

“We never heard from him since then and what he only did was to send the car which we are holding on to until we get our payment.”
The workers said they had not eaten anything for long.

“We do not have any food and moreover it is impossible to go home because our families are also expecting money from us,” the worker said.
Efforts to get a comment from Liquid Telecom were fruitless.