700 jobs on line at Cadilu

ABOUT 700 workers at Cadilu Fishing in Walvis Bay are being laid off because the company is going into provisional liquidation.
The workers were informed of the situation on Wednesday.

According to the letter sent to all Cadilu staff, the Investment Trust Company is the liquidator.The letter said to ensure an orderly winding-up of the company’s affairs, the provisional liquidators ‘will continue with the business of Cadilu until the end of February’.Fishing and processing will carry on, and the liquidators will pay all the costs of maintaining the operations, according to the letter.As far as the staff are concerned, the liquidators intend to pay them their gross salaries without deductions. This means that staff will be responsible for paying their own contributions to the pension scheme and medical aid fund. The liquidators will assist in making these arrangement, according to the letter.Staff wanting to seek employment elsewhere could do so within 24 hours without penalty.The letter said the liquidators would formulate a plan for future action, which would be communicated as soon as possible.Dave Bruni of Investment Trust confirmed the liquidation when contacted by The Namibian.’We’ve set the date for liquidation for the end of February but hopefully we can get business back on track,’ he said.’This is just a process. It could work out for everyone, or it could not. We should have more information by next week.’The regional co-ordinator of the Namibian Food and Allied Workers’ Union, Cleopas Ngwena, said negotiations have started with the company to ensure that workers will get full remuneration packages, since there are concerns that they might lose all their benefits if the company does eventually close. adam@namibian.com.na