Around 276 Rundu Cash & Carry staff members blocked the store’s entrance on Wednesday morning after receiving transfer letters for allegedly leaking information that the store sells expired goods.

The 276 workers were reinstated on 08 February 2023 after being suspended from work after staging a demonstration in December last year, citing low wages and ill-treatment at work.

Last week, the shop was also temporarily closed down by health inspectors from the Rundu Town Council after they confiscated large amounts of expired goods.

Speaking to Nampa at the scene where workers blocked the entrance to the store, labour consultant Linus Neumbo said Cash & Carry supermarket, which falls under the Rani Group of Companies, failed to implement the settlement agreement reached following the reinstatement of the workers.

“We came up with a settlement agreement which was binding on all parties to be implemented within three months. Nothing was implemented,” he said.

He explained that after returning to work, the workers leaked information that the store was re-selling expired goods and based on that all 276 workers were put up for transfer to Rani Group stores in other towns of the country.

This, Neumbo said, angered the workers who decided to block the entrance to the store.

“The transfer was a way to permanently get rid of the workers as they were not even paid their full salaries for the month of February,” he charged.

Some workers were paid N.dollars 200, some N.dollars 400, he said.

“No employee is going to comply with the transfer order. We are now going to fight this out at the Ministry of Labour, Industrial Relations and Employment Creation to see if we can get an urgent interdict to stop this,” he stated.

One of the Cash and Carry workers, Agnantia Shikongo said she was transferred to Swakopmund where she had no family on a salary of N.dollars 400 for the month.

“How do you expect us to even travel to other towns with only N.dollars 400. The reason we were given for the transfers is that the store is apparently overcrowded. How can it not be overcrowded if the new temporary workers are still employed when they were supposed to stop working when we were reinstated,” she asked.

Gottlieb Ndjendjela whose labour consulting company represents the Rani Group, said he is “not on the ground” and would not comment on the matter.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency