Johannesburg - Divided employees of Gupta-owned Oakbay Investments prevented the ANC Youth League from addressing them about possible job losses in the company.
Staff engaged in “a screaming match” over who had invited them in the first place.
Oakbay Investments is the holding company for all the Guptas’ businesses in the country, which include TV news channel ANN7 and The New Age (TNA) newspaper.
Yesterday afternoon, ANCYL national spokesman, Mlondi Mkhize, said they had received an open letter from ANN7 and TNA employees titled “please save our jobs”.
In the letter, marked for the attention of chief executives of Absa (Maria Ramos), FNB (Jacques Celliers), Standard Bank (Ben Kruger), and Nedbank (Michael Brown), the employees appeal to the banks to reopen Oakbay’s bank accounts.
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They state: “If by the end of May, the accounts remain closed‚ Oakbay’s businesses will close. That means thousands of us will be without a job. We urge you to recognise that your actions have a human cost… We do not understand why we have become the victims in a political game.”
The Big Four banks, together with Oakbay’s auditor KPMG, and JSE sponsor Sasfin, all cut ties with the Guptas recently, following after recent allegations of state capture by the company.
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The employees pleaded: “Please reopen the bank accounts so that we do not have to suffer.
"We‚ the employees‚ have not done anything wrong.”Oakbay chief executive Nazeem Howa reportedly told staff in a letter that the closure of its bank accounts “made it virtually impossible to continue to do business in South Africa”.
Mkhize, who was with ANCYL president Collen Maine, said they were prevented from addressing concerned employees at the Guptas’ offices at Corporate Park South in Midrand yesterday afternoon.
“The whole thing became a screaming [match]. People were shouting and others were screaming,” said Mkhize.
He said they eventually decided to leave upon realising that employees were divided, with the majority of them seeking their intervention and others blatantly refusing their involvement.
“We left there for a number of reasons. When we got there, we soon established that not all employees had been consulted in the writing of the letter.
Read also: Oakbay workers issue appeal to banks
"We felt that there was no consensus among workers. We told them we would not speak to divided people. We would go back there once they are united because the whole thing became a screaming [match]. People were shouting and others were screaming,” he said. He added that they were concerned about the possibility of young people “who are going to lose their jobs”.
“They are not sure if they will be paid at the end of the month,” Mkhize said.
Howa could not be reached for comment. Oakbay also did not respond to an e-mail query sent to them.
THE STAR
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