Workers from the North West Transport Investment (NTI) are calling for the government’s intervention after the entity’s (Business Rescue Practitioner) BRP allegedly failed to pay their salaries for three months.
The workers held a protest outside the Provincial legislature, demanding their outstanding salaries, and vowed to camp at the national key point’s precinct until their salaries are paid.
One of the workers who requested to be anonymous out of fear of being victimized said it was unfair that they were stuck between the department and the BRP squabbles.
“We came here again today and we were here two weeks back, and we were promised that our salaries will be paid on the 26 May but still they were not paid. It seems that there is no solution because they are telling us about the BRP.
“We just met with MEC, Sello Lehari and he told us that they can’t pay us while the business practitioner is still there. So we don’t know why we should be told about the BRP because the department is the one that brought it in. Why should we suffer because of BRP? We were not hired by BRP but by the department. So we want our money!
“As I’m talking right now there is a crisis, one of us has passed on, a driver at the NTI. His family does not even have the money to bury him. But he was working, just imagine! Even we as his colleagues are disheartened because we want to donate to his family, but we don’t have money. So what is supposed to happen in this type of situation?” he asked.
Another protester said they were tired of their awful living conditions while they were working.
“It’s really hard. We left our kids and some have left their wives and kids at home to come and look for answers. We don’t have anything, we can’t buy electricity, we don’t have food and on top of that there is also load shedding.
“You can’t even buy gas or even paraffin. Our accounts are in areas. We can’t even pay school fees for our children. We can’t even pay for their school transport. Everything is just a mess,” she said.
The North West acting Head of the Department of Transport Management, Mpho Maleme, blamed the BRP for diverting funds instead of paying workers.
“In terms of Section 40 of 140 of the company’s Act, the BRP has all the powers within the NTI. We promised the employees that we were going to give them money, which we did. But the challenge is that immediately when the money was deposited into the account, the BRP moved the money, and then he sent a very long message to tell us that he is not going to pay the employees. But he is going to pay other creditors.
“We then wrote a letter to him to say that the employees are also special creditors. But he chose who he wanted to pay, and unfortunately, then we didn’t even have any powers to do anything within the account of NTI because of Section 140 of the company’s act. But we are dealing with this challenge,” Maleme said.
The North West Transport Management has approached the court of law in a bid to terminate the appointment of the BRP, as he failed to perform in line with his term of reference.
