PRESSURE is piling on United Touring Company (UTC), a tourism company linked to Environment, Water and Climate minister Saviour Kasukuwere, with 17 of the 46 former employees demanding the $136 000 they were awarded by an arbitrator as retrenchment packages.
CHARLES LAITON
The development came a few days after 23 other UTC workers secured a High Court writ of execution to attach property worth nearly $200 000 in salary and wage arrears.
According to court papers filed by the former workers, an arbitrator, Arthur Manase, gave four months from November last year until March this year for UTC to pay up the outstanding retrenchment packages after the company indicated that it needed time to dispose of some of its assets to raise the cash.
“Claimants (Davison Marewangepo and 45 others) were employed by the respondent (UTC) until 2011 when respondent retrenched staff. Parties agreed on payment of retrenchment packages and the retrenchment agreement was approved by the board. Respondent has, however, failed to pay the approved packages,” Manase said before announcing his award.
“The parties agreed to payment packages upon sale of assets. From the facts, it is clear that there has been no sale to date on the face of it; Respondent has thus not breached the agreement. I find the request to give respondent four months up to March 2014 to sell the assets and pay packages eminently reasonable. I so grant it.
“It is thus awarded as follows: Respondent is to pay the agreed packages to claimants by end of March 2014. The packages are to earn interest at the legal rate if there is any further delay in payment after March 2014.”
Out of the total 46 retrenched employees, 17 are from the Mashonaland region while the rest are from Matabeleland. But the two regions are now fighting for their cause separately after a ruling in their favour by Manase.
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According to the court papers under case number 2413/13 filed with the Ministry of Labour, the workers were engaged and employed by UTC until it was taken over by Kasukuwere from 2001 until 2011 when they faced retrenchment.
UTC was forced to retrench the workers due to inability to pay the employees full salaries for a period of two years.
This, according to the court papers, was as a result of the decline in the tourism sector during that time which led to the recording of low business.
