By Isaac Salima:
Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (Admarc) ex-employees will have to wait a bit longer before they can get their court ordered compensation as the grain trader has taken the matter to the High Court.
Recently, the Industrial Relations Court (IRC) sitting in Blantyre ordered Admarc to pay ex-employees compensation over unsafe and unfair labour practices.
However, the corporation has applied for an order of stay of execution at the High Court.
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Judge Allan Muhome has, in a notice, already called for inter partes hearing this week. IRC ordered Admarc to pay the employees over K18 billion for unsafe and unfair labour practices. The employees, who are 3,282 in total, were to get about K5.5 million each.
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The court also asked lawyers for both sides to sit down and decide on how much should be paid to the ex-employees as minimum compensation for unfair dismissal, for which they came up with an amount of K7 billion.
In total, the former workers were to receive about K25 billion Initially, Admarc applied for a stay order until the appeal was heard.
However, the court set conditions for Admarc. In a ruling delivered on Tuesday last week, IRC Deputy Chairperson Tamanda Nyimba ordered Admarc to pay 50 percent of the awarded amount—which is about K12.5 billion—to the employees pending the appeal.
Lawyers for the grain trader have since decided to take the matter to the High Court where, if successful, they would not pay the former employees pending the outcome of the appeal. Admarc says it is in a financial predicament to pay the former workers. The ex-employees’ lawyer Ackim Ndhlovu confirmed that the matter would be heard this week. In 2022, Admarc retrenched all its employees as part of its restructuring process.
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However, the employees, led by Malikebu, challenged the decision in court, claiming that they were unfairly dismissed.
The court agreed with their applications.The applicants were seeking K52.3 billion in compensation.
