Company’s directive riles workers

land reform programme will not be able to farm their plots after the firm barred them from any activities that bring extra income.

The Lowveld-based company, which specialises in sugar production, emp-loys more than 18 000 workers.

According to a declaration of business interests’ form they are required to sign, the workers cannot engage in any businesses for extra cash, including farming.
Investigations by The Herald established that most workers at Triangle and Hippo Valley Estates benefited from land reform programme.

The firm has since written to all workers advising them to comply with the order, which has an October 13 2012 deadline.
“A request has been made to have updated signed hard copies of declaration of business interests as at October 1 2012,” read an e-mail from Tongaat Hulett human resources manager Kimpton Gwamura to the workers.

“Please may you complete, sign and send attached copies to myself before Friday October 13 2012.
“A register will be maintained, hence a follow-up will be initiated if nothing is received by this date.
“I request that you attend to this as a priority to meet a strict deadline that has been set for collection and submission of a return on this exercise.”

Tongaat Hulett spokesperson Mrs Adelaide Chikunguru confirmed the development.
She, however, could not shed more light.
“I have not yet received an authorised response to your inquiries. I will get back to you tomorrow (today).”
According to the business interests declaration in possession of The Herald, the workers would not be involved in any income-generating concern that could be classified as a business without the approval of the company.

The company requires the workers not to be involved in any form of business such as any shareholding or directorship in any business undertaking.
The workers are also barred from acquiring businesses directly or through any immediate family member.
They would not accept an additional salary, remuneration, allowance, monetary benefit or payment in kind or payment or reward for services rendered to any person or business other than the company.

The company wants all workers to agree and accept that it is a condition of employment that they should “not be concerned or interested directly or indirectly or be personally employed or engaged in any capacity whatsoever in or in connection with any business whatsoever other than the business of the company”.
The declaration further states that workers are barred from conducting any business while in the service of the company or of any company to which Triangle Limited provides secretarial and/or technical and/or administrative and/or advisory service, except with its prior written approval.

The workers yesterday said this was not the first time the company has ordered them not to engage in any income-generating projects.
“Between 2009 and 2010, we were also ordered to sign similar documents after the company unilaterally changed conditions of employment and forced us to comply or risk dismissal,” said a worker who preferred anonymity.
The workers said the company changed conditions of service under a scheme dubbed “Total Cash Packages”.

They said the move flew in the face of the Government’s economic empowerment policy.
“It means workers cannot participate in land reform,” said a worker.
The workers also accused Tongaat Hulett, which has its headquarters in Durban, South Africa, of prejudicing Zimbabwean workers.

“We are the least paid, but Tongaat Hulett Zimbabwe is the major contributor of dividends in the group with a contribution of 40 to 50 percent of total earnings,” said another worker.

Tongaat Hulett has operations in Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland and Mozambique.
The company, according to its website, employs at least 42 000 workers in all the countries.