Mbombela - Former Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) MP Magdalene Moonsamy will soon lock horns with the National Youth Development Agency's (NYDA) lawyers in court in a labour dispute involving the State agency and some of its former employees.
The NYDA reportedly retrenched a number of its workers nationally between July 2015 and March this year as part of its restructuring process.
Moonsamy told the African News Agency (ANA) that she was representing 17 of the “retrenched” employees. She said the legal brawl included the NYDA's alleged failure to provide its former workers with information related to the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF), adding they could therefore not claim their benefits from the fund. “Some of the retrenched workers discovered that they were not even registered for UIF when they went to there to claim their benefits,” she said.
“We are drafting litigation papers and we will know next week as to when the matter will be heard in the high court or Labour Court.
“These [retrenched workers] are people with unique skills set, especially on youth development. You can't just dispose of such a historic value.”
Attempts by Moonsamy and the NYDA to resolve the matter through dialogue in the past few months appear to have hit an impasse. ANA has seen a responding letter from the NYDA to Magdalene Moonsamy Attorneys, which was dated July 26, 2016, and signed off by its Chief Financial Officer, Waseem Carrim. “Kindly provide us with a list of your clients who are allegedly not registered for UIF,” the letter read in part.
Moonsamy, who resigned from the EFF as MP in September this year, but remains a party member, is also a former NYDA employee who worked for the agency as Chief Operations Officer in the past three years. She was suspended by the agency in July 2013 for undisclosed reasons, but her suspension was lifted later the same month before she resigned.
She insisted that her involvement in this case was not her way of getting back at the NYDA for suspending her. She told ANA the NYDA actually suspended her for attending the corruption case of EFF leader Julius Malema at the Polokwane High Court in April 2013.
One of the former NYDA workers, Hlanga Mqushulu, who said she had been retrenched, said she worked for the NYDA for eight years in Midrand and was deeply disappointed at being unable to claim her UIF benefits. “I got my UIF form from the NYDA after the expiry date. I was a manager for partnerships when I was retrenched. I contributed to the UIF for eight years but got nothing,” she said.
Another former employee, who only identified herself as Antoinette, said: “I was retrenched but I'm unable to claim UIF benefits because there is no paperwork.”
NYDA's communications manager, Jane Moshoeshoe, said the agency retrenched only two employees, adding that 89 others took voluntary severance packages. She said the NYDA had furnished all former employees with the UIF forms within a reasonable period.
“The NYDA is registered for UIF and has paid all the required monthly contributions to the South African Revenue Service as required by UIF guidelines,” said Moshoeshoe.
“Through the restructuring, the NYDA managed to reduce its salary bill from R189 million to R145 million in the 2015/16 financial year.”
Responding to Moonsamy's remark about her suspension, Moshoeshoe said Moonsamy had left the NYDA in 2013 through a confidential agreement under the tutelage of the board and the then CEO. The current management could therefore not comment on the mutual agreement reached, added Moshoeshoe.
African News Agency