Workers at Duration Gold owned Vumbachikwe mine in Gwanda have been ripped off thousands of dollars in dodgy salary deductions by the company whose directors claim to be well protected by former Indigenization Minister Saviour Kasukuwere.
The huge gold producing mine has been “stealing” money utilising fake deductions from the workers’ salaries, which are never processed as stipulated on paper, ZimEye can reveal.
Top on the list of deductions not remitted to the authorities are pension funds meant for the Mining Industry Pensions Fund and the Mine Workers Union of Zimbabwe. Documentary evidence ZimEye this week begins offloading shows sums being taken by the company and never paid out as required. The MIPF has revealed to ZimEye.com that the company has dodged contributions for several years.
This development is the latest after numerous others involving the actual salaries thereof. Late last year the Messenger of Court in Bulawayo attached the mine’s biggest front end loader for auction to pay the workers’ union the outstanding amounts. The earth moving machine valued at nearly (1)one hundred thousand dollars, was rescued from auction after the company at the last hurried to enter into an arrangement which involved an immediate down payment of $18 000.
Sources within the mine reveal to ZimEye.com that the white owners of the mine who took it over ownership from Forbes and Thompson Gwanda, have been on a spree of removing the black top management replacing them with white foreigners.
Some of the foreign new managers are said to be working in the country without proper documentation and yet the entity knowingly facilitates their stay and employment in the country.
The workers complain that the original management team left in charge by Forbes and Thompson is being sent on early retirement before the age of 65 stated as their retirement age in the contracts of employment. The mine management is sending them on retirement without any retirement packages and the Pensions Fund is neither paying them anything as a result of the non remittance of pensions contributions.
The sources further claim that the owners of the mine always threaten the workers with dismissal or some unspecified action saying that nothing will ever be done to them as they have the protection of ZANU PF national commissar Saviour Kasukuwere.
The mine which is one of the top gold producers in the country has been subject of indigenization law concerns for a number of years as it continues failing to meet the country’s indigenization requirements.
In his time as Minister of Indigenization and Youth Empowerment, Kasukuwere was accused of accepting secret arrangements with white mine owners contrary to the laws of the country. According to media reports his dealings with the mine owners eventually led to his removal from the Ministry as massive corruption was suspected in the dealings.
Kasukuwere is in the process of constructing one of the most expensive mansions in the country, his private residence. Efforts to obtain his comment failed as he did not respond even after a 60 day waiting period.