Jessie Okoche Investment employees cry foul over salaries

PATRICIA MAGANU
Staff Writer | Tuesday March 23, 2010 00:00

Jessie Okoche Investments operates a Western Union and a bureau de change in Francistown as well as several cash loan companies in towns such as Selibe-Phikwe, Palapye, Maun and Francistown.

'We get paid late every month. Even up to now we have not been paid our salaries for March and we are struggling with rent and other responsibilities,' said one employee. Another employee said that when the problem started they tried to seek  help from the Department of Labour.

'We had to put an immediate stop to that because when they approached him, he threatened to fire us,' she added. When confronted with the allegations Alex Okoche, the managing director of the company blamed the credit crunch for the problems besetting his company. Okoche said he has held meetings with his staff where they agreed that they would pay the salaries one branch at a time, as a solution to the problem.'The people that have yet to be paid are in the last branch to receive payment as agreed and they are complaining because this month it is their salaries that are late, they did not complain when salaries were late at other branches,' he said. 

Employees however said Okoche was being misleading, as all branches are yet to receive their salaries. In a letter written to the employees dated March 15, 2010 Okoche advised them that the company had not been able to pay salaries or any company expenses for the month of March. It further stated that the problem arose because of the continued loss of business due to international recession and the dollarization (sic) of the Zimbabwean economy.

He went on to write that the company had addressed the issue and come to some decisions. 'Some of the strategies the company has done is strict monitoring of expenses, retrenchment of some unfortunate staff, avoidance and postponement of some expense payments and securing additional funding from banks. As management we have done the best we can with your support. The problem refuses to go away,' it stated. He wrote that as a final push the company has decided to review office rentals for recovery purposes, to raise money from a bank to clear all outstanding payments to individual creditors, to renegotiate and restructure all loan repayments to banks, to freeze all expansion and growth plans until further notice, to cut down or abolish all allowances paid to the company staff, to cut down on salaries of all management staff and to retrench some additional staff so as to remain with a few that the company can afford to pay.

On the same day the employees replied to this letter saying that there had a meeting and were not happy with the situation.

The employees' letter states that since October they have been receiving their salaries late and lately the problems seem to have worsened. 'This has seriously impacted on our daily lives as we have been chased out of houses, our debts have increased because of interests charged on our stop orders and we cannot even afford to pay utilities or buy food and are now struggling to come to work because of transport money,' stated the letter. 

The letter further reads: 'We feel our concerns are being taken for granted since this has occurred for a long time and there has been no communication. '