Simunye workers want Zimbabweans out!

SIMUNYE –Xenophobia, which divided South Africa last year, is understood to have crossed the border to the east of Swaziland, where workers at the RSSC in Simunye are unhappy with their Zimbabwean colleagues.

They accuse them of taking their jobs.
The RSSC (Royal Swaziland Sugar Corporation) workers said seven jobs have been taken by expatriates, in particular the Zimbabweans who now occupy engineering posts.

What worries the workers is that the expatriates normally consult them for assistance when they experience technical problems, which are beyond their capacity to resolve.
The workers told the Times SUNDAY that the boiler engineer, instrument technician, instrument engineer, back-end engineer and assistant distillery manager were all Zimbabwean expatriates attached to RSSC-Simunye  while two others from Zimbabwe were based at RSCC in Mhlume in their capacities as front-end engineer and instrument engineer.

They also complained that the eighth position, that of front-end engineer at Simunye was occupied by an expatriate from the Philippines who has been serving in this capacity for about nine years.  
These engineering posts, the workers said, were senior positions that formed part of the management.

Well placed sources said their ambitions to hold the aforementioned positions were thwarted by management’s insistence that, for one to be appointed into senior engineering positions, he should pursue a South African Government Certificate of Competence (GCC).

The GCC is obtainable by first acquiring a BA in any field of engineering plus two years work experience. After that, the candidate can sit for the GCC.
“We want evidence from management that the expatriates that we have in the company are in possession of the GCC,” an informant disclosed to the Times SUNDAY.

Workers felt the company had not yet ‘convincingly’ created opportunities for advancement, hence the acquisition of foreign expertise and also complained of perceived disbelief in local skills and lack of mechanisms to invest in Swazis.
“It’s a struggle when you resign to further your education and how are we going to advance if the opportunities to strengthen our knowledge are not created for us as Swazis? What worries us is that the expatriates come to us for help when they fail to execute their duties,” another source, we cannot name to protect him, said. 

Nhlanhla Nxumalo, Chairman of the Simunye Branch of the Swaziland Agricultural and Plantations Workers Union (SAPWU), said although he was aware of such complaints from the workforce and the union had registered them with the previous and current management, such matters should have been exhaustively deliberated on internally.
Nxumalo appealed to the workers to give them enough time to reason with the current Managing Director as he appeared to be somebody who is interested in listening to the workers.

The union chairman said the previous boss told them that he would not confine himself to Swazi nationals when he was in search of essential skills.
He said the former boss told them he was at liberty to cast a wide net around the world to acquire competent workers of his choice.

He said it was not true that there was no local expertise because some of the expatriates were no better than the Swazis. A recent case, he said, was that of an expatriate who was dismissed recently for failure to live up to expectations.    

 “I can only confirm to you that the concern you are referring us to is rightly with us and we have communicated it to the management. We have been assured it would be addressed at strategic meetings. To be precise, I am aware of the complaints against Zimbabweans,” pointed out Nxumalo.
He reiterated his appeal that workers should learn to make use of the communication channels the company had created for them.

Localisation Board not convinced

MBABANE – Senator Winnie Magagula, Chairperson of the Localisation Board is personally not convinced that the RSSC is still struggling to get qualified engineers.

Senator Magagula based her skepticism on the fact that the RSSC was an old organisation – one of the giant contributors to the country’s economy. She says they should have long solved the problem of a shortage of local expertise in engineering.

She said she was sure that there were a lot of engineers in the country and many had decided to seek greener pastures in South Africa because of non-recognition of their God-given talents.
The senator said she could even make a list of countless companies in South Africa whose financial fortunes and survival rested squarely on the shoulders of the Swazi engineers. Magagula said there were also big companies in the country with policies that gave first preference to Swazis, like the Swaziland Electricity Company (SEC) where all the engineers were bona fide Swazis.

“I wouldn’t understand if the company would say there were no qualified Swazi engineers but in as far as I know, we have many qualified engineers with no jobs and others remain unrecognised to the exent that many of them have migrated to South Africa for greener pastures and they are doing well there,” said Senator Magagula.
The former trade unionist said the problem with local companies was that conditions of service for qualified Swazis were not as lucrative as those which were being drafted for expatriates.

“Some companies don’t believe in paying Swazis well even when they do the jobs well,” she said. On the issue of the RSSC, she said there was nothing much she could specifically promise that her board would do other than to refer the complaining employees to the Ministry of Labour and Social Security.