adminMidlands Correspondent
GO-BEER breweries properties went under the hammer last Tuesday after the opaque beer manufacturer failed to settle $40,879 in outstanding salaries for seven employees. The workers won a court award to proceed and attach all movable property owned by the beverage maker, a subsidiary of Gweru City Council, to settle their dues.
Among the property attached were vehicles, a grinding mill and welding machines. Go Beer acting general manager Alfred Fundila confirmed the developments to The Chronicle saying they were finding it difficult to liquidate the company’s debt.
The beverage maker is saddled with a debt of about $500,000.
“It’s true that the property was attached and subsequently auctioned after seven employees were granted an order to attach our movable assets for them to recover their dues which is $40,879 for the seven of them,” said Fundila.
“We’ve a total of 41 workers and all of them are still to be paid and we’re looking for mechanisms to settle their dues before we’ve more of our properties attached,” he said. The acting general manager said they initially appealed against the award to the workers but failed to save the properties.
Said Fundila: “Let it be on record that this isn’t a Gweru City Council problem but a Go Beer issue because council is just a shareholder. The challenge is that we approached the shareholder late when the property had already been attached and at the time council didn’t have money to bail us out.”
The latest attachment of property comes barely a month after council vehicles were attached by the messenger of court after some Go Beer employees obtained a writ of execution to recover their outstanding salaries.
Council had to pay about $19,000 for the return of the vehicles, most of which belonged to senior management.
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter