KADOMA City Council has agreed retrenchment terms with workers from its commercial arm, Kadoma Marketing (KAMA), allowing it to wind up operations of the company.
BLESSED MHLANGA
The council has been battling with 70 workers who were left jobless when the council pulled the plug on KAMA, its liquor marketing arm, in 2012 after posting a string of losses.
The workers staged sleep-ins and blocked private players from taking over the business, demanding council to pay in full their retrenchment packages.
However, a deal which was agreed will see 31 employees getting their packages in the form of residential stands and cash, while the remainder will be paid from income generated from rentals of the council’s properties.
“We are now leasing the beer halls and bottle stores which were controlled by KAMA and collecting $5 000 a month in rentals,” Kadoma mayor Muchineripi Chinyanganya said.
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“We have paid a substantial figure already, but we still owe the workers $150 000 which will be paid through the rentals raised from the property leases.”
Workers’ committee chairman Godfrey Manika said they had taken the deal because they had no choice as their families were starving.
“Council owes us and this money is paid monthly from a revenue base of only $5 000. If we had a choice, we would not agree to such a deal. We were arm-twisted into accepting such terms of payment because we needed to survive and feed our families and because we had fought for so long without results,” he said.
Kadoma set up its commercial arm 12 years ago.