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Senior Business Reporter
EMPLOYEES at a local engineering firm, Chaferfly Enterprises, have reportedly gone for more than a year without salaries amid disclosures the company is also struggling to pay rentals. The Bulawayo-based firm employs about 50 workers. Some of the disgruntled workers told Business Chronicle that they have since been evicted by their landlords for non-payment of rentals.

Documents seen by this paper show that Chaferfly owes over $40,000 in rentals for a property it used to rent along Plumtree Road.
“We regret that due to cash-flow constraints which we are currently experiencing, we are not in a position to pay our debt at once,” Chaferfly Enterprises managing director, Godfrey Nyakudya wrote to John Pocock & Company who are managing the property.

“This was mainly due to non- payment by our major debtors which in turn seriously affected our working capital . . . In view of the above, we propose to pay $500 by the 15th of each month starting from April 2014 for four months and thereafter reviewed to $800 per month.”

Jill Joubert, who owns the property at 109 Plumtree Road, said she had since taken legal action against Chaferfly Enterprises in a bid to recover rentals.

Employees at the company told Business Chronicle that Nyakudya had informed them that the firm’s debtors were yet to pay for the goods delivered, hence the failure to pay salaries.

“We have not been paid salaries since October 2012 and Nyakudya has told us that the company was not able to pay us since the debtors are yet to pay for the orders delivered.

“However, we were surprised when we read it in the Press last year that the company had sponsored $70,000 towards a golf tournament in Hwange. This is despite us not having been paid our salaries,” said an employee who preferred not to be named fearing victimisation.
The worker said they were living difficult lives as some of them have been evicted from the houses that they rented by their landlords.

Employees claimed that their company relocated to Thorngrove after it failed to pay rentals for the Plumtree Road premises.
In an interview before requesting this paper to put questions in writing, Nyakudya denied the claims by his workers.

“There have only been delays in payment of February salaries but not to say that they have gone for more than 12 months unpaid.
“And because of the challenges that the company is experiencing, our debtors have not been able to pay us owing to the liquidity crunch in the economy.

“We are owed $1,5 million and for our operations we need $150,000,” he said.
Nyakudya had not responded to written questions sent to him on Friday.