AT least 20 former Zimbabwe Institute of Public Administration and Management (Zipam) employees have approached the courts seeking an interdict against their former paymaster, who has threatened to evict them from staff accommodation without paying their terminal benefits.
CHARLES LAITON The employees, however, have vowed to stay put at the institution’s premises until their outstanding salaries and benefits amounting to more than $450 000 have been paid.
In their application for a default judgment against Zipam, the employees accused the latter of wanting to boot them out and later renege on the obligation to pay their dues. The 20 are part of a group of 35 Zipam workers whose employment contracts were terminated following a Supreme Court ruling in July last year.
“The applicants (employees) seek an interdict prohibiting the respondent (Zipam) from evicting the applicants from the respondents’ premises pending the finalisation of the matter for non-payment of terminal benefits,” the employees said in their affidavit.
“The applicants have a right to be paid their terminal benefits in full. It is clear that if the respondent is allowed to evict the applicants, it will never bother to pay them their dues in terms of the law.
“There is a reasonable apprehension of harm in that the respondent will evict the applicants from the premises pending the outcome of the labour matter despite the fact that the respondent has unlawfully failed and refused to pay them their terminal benefits. The respondent has since verbally advised the applicants to vacate the premises. There is danger that if they vacate the premises they will never be paid their owed monies.”
In an interview with NewsDay on Monday, one of the fired workers, Edward Munhu, said Zipam was refusing to pay them on the basis that they were Zanu PF supporters since their dismissal was politically motivated.
“We were fired on political grounds, all the employees who lost their jobs are members of the Zanu PF party and I am the district political commissar,” he claimed.
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“We are not saying we do not want to go, but what we are simply asking the employer to do is to pay us our dues and then we leave. The organisation cannot threaten to evict us without having paid anything towards our benefits. Some of us have not been paid since 2009.”
Another affected member, Tausi White, a Sabina Mugabe branch political commissar, said they had been reduced to destitutes and their children were no longer attending school.
The matter is yet to be heard at the High Court.
