By Isaac Salima:
The Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (Admarc) appears to be paying a heavy price for its decision to retrench all its staff members.
However, the government has so far been unable to bail out the struggling grain trader.
Last week, sheriffs seized some Admarc property and also froze its assets after the government-owned produce trader failed to pay some of its former employees.
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Ironically, the government, through the then Minister of Agriculture, Robin Lowe, had ordered the retrenchment of the staff members.
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When asked what the government is doing to intervene in the matter, Minister of Agriculture Sam Kawale did not respond to our WhatsApp questionnaire.
Admarc’s Chief Executive Officer, Daniel Makata, said he was going into a meeting and would call us back.
However, he did not answer our calls later.
Admarc’s legal representative, Francisco Chikavumbwa, said he had not received instructions from his client to speak to the media on the issue.
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The government-owned grain trader has been in the news after its 3,282 former employees took it to the Industrial Relations Court (IRC) over unfair dismissal.
The IRC ordered Admarc to pay the employees over K25 billion as compensation.
However, Admarc applied for a stay of the IRC ruling until the appeal was heard, which the court declined, offering conditions instead.
Admarc argued that its financial position was not strong enough to pay the employees.
In his ruling, IRC Deputy Chairperson Tamanda Nyimba ordered Admarc to pay 50 percent of the awarded amount (approximately K12.5 billion) to the employees pending the appeal.
Lawyers for the grain trader then took the matter to the High Court, which, in its sitting in Blantyre, rejected their application to stop the enforcement of the full payment of compensation to the dismissed employees.
The court gave Admarc 14 days to pay the ex-workers and it is the failure to comply with the court order that has led to the sheriffs’ action.
Chairperson of the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture and Irrigation, Sameer Suleman, said that Admarc must pay the former employees.
“The government has to sit down and negotiate with the former workers on how to resolve this issue. The government is responsible because it dismissed the employees,” Suleman said.
The ex-workers’ chairperson, Alex Malikebu, said they will be waiting to hear from their lawyers on the way forward.
“We know that the garnishee order is for 21 days and we also hope that the property seizure is for the same period. So, we will wait to see what transpires after the 21-day period,” he said.
Agricultural policy analyst Leonard Chimwaza criticised the government for rushing into action during the restructuring of Admarc.
“Admarc made a mistake by firing its employees because the recommendation was to implement this gradually. We believe the government was poorly advised, as the restructuring of Admarc was not about firing employees,” he said.
The restructuring of Admarc was part of broader reforms, as it had long faced challenges related to inefficiency and mismanagement and had consistently requested a government bailout.
