STAFF REPORTER
HARARE – It has emerged that Nyasha Chikwinya, a Zanu PF proportional representation lawmaker for Harare North, does not pay her employees for several months, making them work for free and essentially running a modern day slavery operation at her real estate and property development company called Pilgrims Rest Properties Private Limited that is based at Hungwe House in Harare.
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| Nyasha Chikwinya |
A number of her disgruntled employees have come forward – finally breaking their silence – grumbling about the unbearable ill-treatment they are subjected to by the MP, who always adamantly refuses to pay them their salaries; effectively condemning them to a degraded existence.
They complain that they go for several months without being paid, and always live in a perpetual state of uncertainty. They claim that even when the money comes, it is always not paid in full. This happens while Nyasha Chikwinya tells the whole world of how much she is a righteous person, yet treats her employees like slaves.
Employees who spoke to ZimSphere did so on the basis of anonymity, fearing cruel reprisals as she, on plenty occasions, punishes anyone who dares to stand up to her. Employees who demand their salaries are summarily dismissed, without even following the due procedures set out by labour law when it comes to the dismissal of employees. The employees say that they work in deplorable conditions, adding that it is "dishonourable" for a legislator – responsible for making the laws of a country – to be flagrantly flouting labour laws in such a brazen manner.
"It is very hard to work under Nyasha Chikwinya, given her dishonourable conduct. We go for many months without being paid, and everyone works under the fear that if you demand your money, you will be dismissed. It is like living in hell," said one of the employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The employees said that upon being employed, Chikwinya refuses to sign contracts, adding that she uses this brutal tactic to hold leverage over employees. They said she has been getting away with this for the longest time because she is a Zanu "comrade".
Added another employee: "She does not even sign contracts. You will draft a contract containing all the details you agreed to in the interview, but the papers will just gather dust in her office. We have nowhere else to report to because she hides under the fact that she is a war veteran and a comrade. We have the sense that she is untouchable. There is one employee who once engaged a journalist to expose the rot at this company but when she (Chikwinya) found out, she immediately dismissed her without following any due procedure."
The employees intimated to this publication that sometimes they do underhand activities and divert some of the money to their own pockets without her knowledge. "It's the only way we can survive, because we do not even get paid," said another.
The company brings in thousands of dollars each month, through stands it sells mostly in the Hatcliffe area of Harare; yet despite this fact, her employees languish in abject poverty. She even goes to great lengths in donating thousands of dollars to churches and constituency members while totally neglecting her employees – the very same employees who bring money to the company.
Efforts to get a comment from Nyasha Chikwinya were fruitless at the time of publishing this article.
All evidence provided by the employees points to an operation that has been going on for many years, and has been kept under wraps because employees fear being punished by Chikwinya.
Some of the employees said that Chikwinya's shenanigans go beyond not paying employees—the Zanu PF-linked Pilgrims Rest dabbles in the nasty activity of double sales of stands, regularly fleecing honest customers of their hard-earned money. She is facing litigation in courts because of these double sales, yet she continues engaging in doing that, according to the employees.
While in other countries Chikwinya would have been easily prosecuted for running a modern day slavery operation, the situation in Zimbabwe is different. The employees say that she wields her Zanu PF influence to do as she pleases, and they hope that with this exposé people will now know her for the callous woman she is.
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