admin
Nqobile Tshili and Prosper Ndlovu, Business Reporters
WORKERS at the struggling Hwange Colliery Company Limited (HCCL) have hit hard times due to non-payment of salaries that has seen the company opting for a food hamper programme, which it is failing to sustain.
Disgruntled workers who spoke to Business Chronicle on condition of anonymity for fear of victimisation said they were surviving from hand to mouth as they were struggling to make ends meet.
HCCL owes its workers $45 million in salary arrears for the past two years. It has since emerged that while the firm was deducting medical aid money from workers’ pay, the funds were not being disbursed to service providers.
The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare revealed this in the National Assembly, where it reported on the working conditions at the HCCL, National Railways of Zimbabwe and Dete refractories.
The committee’s chairperson Mr Goodluck Kwaramba said employees at the colliery are struggling to sustain their families with schools refusing fees payment plans from parents working at the colliery.
“HCCL owed its 3,000 employees 25 months’ worth of remuneration in salary arrears dating back to 2013 and amounting to $45 million.
Additionally, pensioners had not received any financial benefits since 2009. The committee was informed that the employees were being paid monthly $200 salaries and received food hampers as mitigation against economic hardships,” said Mr Kwaramba.
“However, workers’ representatives highlighted that these items were being issued inconsistently and the last disbursement of the food hampers had been in May 2015.”
He said schools were no longer accepting letters of assurance from HCCL.
“The committee further learnt that HCCL paid school fees for workers’ dependants at selected schools. Nonetheless, the company sometimes failed to pay school fees on time resulting in students being turned away. The committee was also informed that the letters of assurance for payment sent to schools by HCCL management were no longer acceptable to most headmasters,” said the MP.
He said HCCL workers complained that the company was making medical aid deductions yet no money was being disbursed to medical aid societies.
He said the workers expressed concern over the company management’s refusal to meet with the workers since 2013. Workers, he said, came up with cost cutting suggestions that were shot down by the company.
“The workers’ representatives also reported that management had rejected their cost-cutting proposal of repairing the company’s malfunctioning machinery, in order to avoid the more expensive option of hiring contractors who require immediate payment,” said Mr Kwaramba.
In the face of crippling operational constraints, the workers early this year took the company to court seeking that the giant firm be placed under judicial management to save it from litigation.
The company’s management opposed the decision preferring a scheme of arrangement with its creditors who are owed more than $200 million.
The scheme meeting had been provisionally scheduled to take place yesterday after the company said it had obtained a court order for leave to convene the meeting of the secured and unsecured creditors.
The meeting has since been postponed “to a date to be advised”, chairperson of the scheme meeting Mr Andrew Lawson said in a statement.
“Things are really bad at the Colliery and we cannot afford to pay fees for our children. We cannot budget anything or afford to bury our loved ones because the funeral policy we have is not working due to arrears. The staff morale is very low and we cannot talk of personal development,” said one of the workers yesterday.
“The company gives us $12 food hamper after four to five months and it is one and a half months since we got one. Recently they took grocery on credit for workers from National Foods but they are struggling to pay for that.”
derick.khumalo