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Zambia Sugar workers reject foreign Manager
Mazabuka, July 30, 2014, ZANIS–Some employees at Zambia Sugar PLC in Mazabuka have warned that they will stage a peaceful demonstration should management go ahead with plans to employ a South African national as Factory Manager.
The employees who vowed to demonstrate against the move said Zambia is not short of qualified personnel to take up such a role.
ZANIS in Mazabuka reports that the workers are opposed to plans by the company management to employ a South African national as Factory Manager.
The employees who declined to be named for fear of victimization said they were aware of plans by Zambia Sugar which is a subsidiary of Illovo Sugar Limited of South Africa to replace suspended manager James Mukukwa with a South African national.
The employees revealed that the mood among employees is very low following information filtering through that management at Illovo limited in South Africa have recommended that they send someone to take over the duties of Factory Manager.
They wondered the motive behind employing a foreign national when the country has a lot of skilled and qualified human resource that can effectively oversee the operations of the factory.
“We thought the employment of a first Zambian Managing Director (Aubrey Chibumba) had marked the end of employing foreign nationals into key positions but plans to bring in someone from South Africa is quite disturbing,” lamented an employee.
The employees said there is need for government to quickly intervene and halt such plans if job opportunities are to be created among its citizens majority of whom they said have no decent jobs.
Recently, Management at Zambia Sugar suspended the Factory Manager James Mukukwa indefinitely in the ongoing exercise aimed at ridding the company of suspected corrupt employees.
Sources close to Mr Mukukwa revealed that he had decided to tender in his resignation following his suspension because management as neither charged him with any offence nor reported him to the police.
Four other dismissed employees are currently in court facing corruption charges.
Sources further revealed that both the Anti – Corruption and the forensic experts from Illovo in South Africa have separately intensified their investigations into some practices of corruption involving both senior and junior officials at Zambia Sugar PLC.
The investigations are mainly targeted at employees occupying influential positions in the Sugar company and are linked to fraudulent transactions where they allegedly force contractors to pay them kickbacks in order to be awarded contracts.
