News / Local
Unpaid Green Fuel employees face
04 May 2016 at 06:47hrs | Views
Workers at Chisumbanje ethanol plant, Green Fuel, said they were languishing in abject poverty after going for over 6 months without salaries.
The workers claimed that a majority of them last received their salaries in September last year whilst some were last paid in November last year.
''Workers who work in the fields were last given wages last year in September whilst some last received in November. We are concerned that the salary payments have been so erratic and inconsistent for the past years,'' said one of the workers who decided to remain anonymous.
The Worker reported that they said the situation has become so dire so much that life has become difficult at work and in the compounds.
The workers reported that there have been a host of cases of workers mainly women who are falling unconscious while doing work in the sugarcane fields allegedly due to hunger and fatigue.
Following the incidents, the workers reported that management started to give each employee a 10 kgs of maize meal monthly which would be regarded as a part payment of their wages.
'' We are now being subjected to a type of food for work employment. The bucket of the maize handout is being charged at a value of $8, 50 which would be deducted from our wages. We even still complain that the value is inflated in what we see is a ploy to further exploit us because locally we can purchase the same at $6, 00,'' said an employee who withheld her name for fear of victimisation.
One of the workers reported that at a recent Council Meeting held at the plant, management could not ascertain when workers would receive salaries but assured that the company was going to source more maize for the workers.
''In the meeting management could not promise anything in the near future but maintained that some maize hand outs would be made as a stop gap measure,'' he said.
In an interview, the former District Ethanol Plant Implementation Committee (DEPIC) spokesperson, Claris Madhuku, castigated the company for its insincerity towards the employees and its surrounding community.
''The company has been doing a disservice to the workers and the surrounding community at large. We insist and maintain that the company has the capacity to remunerate employees,'' he said.
Madhuku, who is the current director of the Platform for Youth Development (PYD), a pressure group based in Chipinge, added that daily dispatches handled by some managerial employees at the company reveal that there are high profits being made by the company as their product has a ready market.
''Non remuneration of the workers is only a question of priority and exploitation tendencies by the firm. The business is viable because the company enjoys monopoly of the market through mandatory blending,'' he said.
He further revealed that employees working for the plant were also subjected to gross victimisation and harassment by their management alleging that their workplace was highly politicised.
''Right now the company is operating without a substantive elected workers committee. The company is denying the workers to form one. Management at the plant was on record intimidating anyone who dares talking about the issue. So far i can confirm that the management has fired members of a total of three (3) workers committees at the plant,'' said Madhuku.
He said there were a series of cases reported against the company at the Ministry Of Labour Offices in Chipinge.
When contacted for an interview, Green Fuel Human Resource Manager, Andrew King declined to give a comment.
''I am not allowed by the company policy to comment on such issues on or off record so I can't give you our position regarding those issues,'' he said.
Green Fuel, a joint venture between the government's Agricultural and Rural Development Authority (ARDA) and private companies, Macdom and Rating Investments owned by business tycoon identified as Billy Rautenbach, is Zimbabwe's sole ethanol producer and has a labour compliment of 4,500 employees.
According to officials, the plant has the capacity to produce 120 million litres of high quality, anhydrous ethanol per annum, along with capacity to generate 18 megawatts of electricity.
The workers claimed that a majority of them last received their salaries in September last year whilst some were last paid in November last year.
''Workers who work in the fields were last given wages last year in September whilst some last received in November. We are concerned that the salary payments have been so erratic and inconsistent for the past years,'' said one of the workers who decided to remain anonymous.
The Worker reported that they said the situation has become so dire so much that life has become difficult at work and in the compounds.
The workers reported that there have been a host of cases of workers mainly women who are falling unconscious while doing work in the sugarcane fields allegedly due to hunger and fatigue.
Following the incidents, the workers reported that management started to give each employee a 10 kgs of maize meal monthly which would be regarded as a part payment of their wages.
'' We are now being subjected to a type of food for work employment. The bucket of the maize handout is being charged at a value of $8, 50 which would be deducted from our wages. We even still complain that the value is inflated in what we see is a ploy to further exploit us because locally we can purchase the same at $6, 00,'' said an employee who withheld her name for fear of victimisation.
One of the workers reported that at a recent Council Meeting held at the plant, management could not ascertain when workers would receive salaries but assured that the company was going to source more maize for the workers.
''In the meeting management could not promise anything in the near future but maintained that some maize hand outs would be made as a stop gap measure,'' he said.
In an interview, the former District Ethanol Plant Implementation Committee (DEPIC) spokesperson, Claris Madhuku, castigated the company for its insincerity towards the employees and its surrounding community.
''The company has been doing a disservice to the workers and the surrounding community at large. We insist and maintain that the company has the capacity to remunerate employees,'' he said.
Madhuku, who is the current director of the Platform for Youth Development (PYD), a pressure group based in Chipinge, added that daily dispatches handled by some managerial employees at the company reveal that there are high profits being made by the company as their product has a ready market.
''Non remuneration of the workers is only a question of priority and exploitation tendencies by the firm. The business is viable because the company enjoys monopoly of the market through mandatory blending,'' he said.
He further revealed that employees working for the plant were also subjected to gross victimisation and harassment by their management alleging that their workplace was highly politicised.
''Right now the company is operating without a substantive elected workers committee. The company is denying the workers to form one. Management at the plant was on record intimidating anyone who dares talking about the issue. So far i can confirm that the management has fired members of a total of three (3) workers committees at the plant,'' said Madhuku.
He said there were a series of cases reported against the company at the Ministry Of Labour Offices in Chipinge.
When contacted for an interview, Green Fuel Human Resource Manager, Andrew King declined to give a comment.
''I am not allowed by the company policy to comment on such issues on or off record so I can't give you our position regarding those issues,'' he said.
Green Fuel, a joint venture between the government's Agricultural and Rural Development Authority (ARDA) and private companies, Macdom and Rating Investments owned by business tycoon identified as Billy Rautenbach, is Zimbabwe's sole ethanol producer and has a labour compliment of 4,500 employees.
According to officials, the plant has the capacity to produce 120 million litres of high quality, anhydrous ethanol per annum, along with capacity to generate 18 megawatts of electricity.
Source - The Worker
