GWERU Cash-strapped Go Beer Breweries has retrenched non-permanent staff while sources said the Gweru city council-owned beer concern was also struggling to regularly pay the remaining workers. According to brewery workers, the company that they said has not been able to regularly pay workers for the past six months has terminated the services of 75 contract workers. “We are however grateful that we have at least been paid our October salaries but we are yet to be paid outstanding salaries including overtime, said a worker, among those luck to keep their jobs.
Go Beer managing director Watson Hapanyengwi declined to take questions on the matter saying staff issues were confidential to the company and workers. “We wont solve our issues via the press it’s a matter between management and workers,” he said. However Hapanyengwi last month told the media that his company owed workers substantial amounts of money in unpaid wages.
The Go Beer chief said at the time that the company was in talks with workers representatives to agree a plan to pay outstanding salaries. But sources said Go Beer had scaled down operations due to a shortage of raw materials, a situation that had resulted in a drastic fall in income leaving the company unable to meet salary commitments to workers. More than 150 Go Beer employees earlier this month besieged Gweru Mayor Tedius Chimombe’s offices demanding that he intervenes to ensure they were paid outstanding salaries. Although owned by the municipality Go Beer Breweries is a commercial company that is not directly run by Chimombe and his council.
Post published in: News
I think all these problems emanates from viability problems which can only be solved by downsizing operations and capital injection. Given the current economic environment in Zimbabwe they should pray for a miracle.