admin
Midlands Correspondent
HUNDREDS of former Shabanie Mine employees who had been ordered to vacate the company houses they are occupying, have been given a reprieve after the mine agreed to deduct rentals from the money it owes the former employees in unpaid salaries and benefits.
Shabanie Mine recently sent letters of demand and eviction orders to its former employees who continued to occupy the company houses. The mine was demanding up to $15 000 as rentals from some of its former employees.
The former mine workers, who argued that they were still holding onto the company property because they were owed money in outstanding salaries, later engaged a lawyer to fight their case.
Their lawyer, Mr Tichaona Chivasa of Chivasa and Associates legal Practitioners then wrote to Shabanie Mine proposing that the company deducts what it was owed by its former employees in rentals from the money the company owed them in unpaid salaries and benefits.
“Our instructions reveal that you want to unlawfully evict (our client) and his family from the (company) house on the grounds that he left employment.
Your company owes him lots of money in unpaid salaries and wages, which are not in dispute for that matter and we submit that he has a right to hold onto the house as lieu until you pay him what you owe him.
Alternatively, we submit that it will be fair if you could deduct monthly rental value of the house from the sum that you owe him,” read part of the letter which Mr Chivasa wrote to Shabanie and Mashaba Mines (SMM) Holdings.
Chronicle is in possession of a letter of acknowledgement from SMM Holdings in which the company agreed to deduct its rentals from the money it owes the employees.
“The above refers and in particular to the proposal from your Lawyers Messrs Chivasa and Associates that we set off arrear salaries and benefits owed to you by the company, against the rentals that have accumulated for the company house that you have continued to reside in despite the termination of your contract of employment with the company, which proposal was accepted,” read part of the letter written to one of the former employees.
Meanwhile, some of the former employees said yesterday that they now feared that their former employer would deliberately inflate the rentals so that it does not pay the employees anything in terms of salaries and benefits.
“Following this agreement between our lawyer and the company, our main worry now is that some of us are likely to walk out of the company houses empty handed.
“The company is likely to use this agreement to deliberately inflate rentals so that they gobble everything they owe us. We will instruct our lawyer to look into this matter,” said one of the former employees who requested not to be named.
Another former Shabanie Mine worker, Mr Alpha Banda said he has since received a letter indicating that he was still owing the company after the deductions.
“The letter I received from the company indicates that I still owe them after they have effected the deductions. I am now stranded and have nowhere to go. I was expecting to get something from the company but it seems there is nothing I am going to get,” he said.
Mr Chivasa said he would engage the company over the rental charges.
Online Reporter