Caterer in a stew over mine

CATERING company Roynam says it intends to pursue legal action against a former client that terminated its services earlier this month because of alleged poor service.

The Exxaro mine at Rosh Pinah sent home about 30 Roynam workers on July 7 and suddenly cancelled its contract with the caterer.The mine apparently had to improvise to feed its workers that weekend because Roynam had slipped up. The mine claimed it wasn’t the first time it had encountered problems with the caterer.Breaking nearly a month of silence since the incident, Roynam management this week issued a statement in which it protested the way Exxaro had cancelled its contract.Roynam area manager Larry Gonteb, when contacted on Tuesday, said the company still had six months left on its contract with Exxaro, disputing the mine’s claims that it pulled out only a day before the contract expired.’Our contract expires on February 28 2010 only, so if they wanted to let us go they were supposed to give us six months’ notice,’ Gonteb told The Namibian.Commenting on the fate of the workers, he said they were still employed by Roynam, and were assured of getting this month’s salary despite having stayed home all month.He further confirmed that the Ministry of Health and Social Services renewed its contract with the company this month following similar complaints.Roynam is responsible for catering at Windhoek’s two State hospitals, Katutura State hospital and the Windhoek Central hospital.He said the ministry had not taken over payment of Roynam’s creditors, as had been reported in some local media.It is understood that the ministry, like Exxaro less than a week later, had to come up with alternative means of feeding patients at the two hospitals on July 2.