PIGG’S PEAK – Eswatini Plantations (Pty) Ltd employees have taken issue with management.
This is after they were being served with letters explaining that the company would not provide for their retirement funds. The employees learnt about the new development on Friday, July 28, 2023, when they had gone to receive their pay slips. The pay slips are said to have been accompanied by the letter bearing the news. The letter dated April 13, 2023, written and signed by Eswatini Plantations Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Guy Richard More, had been addressed to all staff and copied to the Remuneration Committee. Titled, ‘Retirement Benefits’, it reads: “This memorandum serves to inform all salaried employees in Eswatini Plantations (Pty) Ltd, that the company does not provide any retirement funds/benefits or contributions. We have always worked off a clean salary and this serves that all salary employees should provide for their own retirement (sic).” The memorandum further states that all employment contracts were clear that the company did not provide or contribute towards a pension or provident fund for employees as the remuneration is an all-inclusive salary.
Termination
“Employees will not be entitled or may not expect any ex gratia payments related to retirement of any kind at retirement and/or termination of employment,” reads the letter, in part.
It then highlights that it is up to each individual to provide for their own retirement out of the net salary they received from the company. The CEO further encouraged all employees to start planning and investing in their own retirement plans. Sources at Eswatini Plantations said the news was shocking and devastating to the employees in that they allegedly received terminal and retirement benefits all along, and were now confused on what made the management reach come to the decision. “I have been working for the company since the early 2 000s and, ever since I arrived, when people retire, they have all along been entitled to retirement benefits,” claimed an insider. According to the sources, those who would retire usually vacated office on the last working day of the year in December and would then get retirement benefits.
