EU financial crisis affects Leading Lodges cash flow

LEADING Lodges of Africa, which runs a number of upmarket tourism establishments, is experiencing cash-flow problems resulting in its employees not receiving their salaries on time.

Although workers are claiming that late salary payments have become a norm at the company, management says it was only the May salaries that were late.Leading Lodges Namibia CEO Werner Beddies said the late payments were because money transfers from their European partners were delayed.Beddies ascribed the delay in transfers from international partners to the financial crisis in Europe.’Due to the financial crisis in Europe if someone from that side defaults on payments, we in Namibia are affected. Payments were made late in May, but that has since been sorted out. And when payments are late, it is not only some people who receive salaries late, it is the whole company, myself included,’ the CEO countered.A group of employees working at the different Leading Lodges of Africa establishments in Namibia expressed unhappiness with their working conditions, claiming salaries are paid late and they receive threats of losing their jobs if they raise issues with company bosses.The workers, who chose to remain anonymous because of fear of victimisation, said they have especially incurred ‘disrespect’ from one of the directors, Paul van de Vijver. ‘If we report our grievances or unhappiness to Mr Paul, he tells us that if we don’t want to work, we can just go. And he tells us that we can report him to whoever we like, nothing will happen to him because he is a friend of many of the ministers in the country,’ said the workers.Van de Vijver referred all queries to Beddies, who said he is not aware of any unhappiness among his workforce.The workers, who are made up of cleaners, maintenance staff, security guards, cooks, waiters/waitresses, support staff and many others, said while some of them only got their salary for May this week, others are still waiting to receive their payments. They further said that the issue of late salary payments is one that has been going on for a long time.’We have bills to pay, monthly instalments that go off at the end of every month and our children and households are depending on us. We are suffering. They do not even tell us why our payments are late and when we ask, we are seen as the enemy,’ said the workers in frustration. With regards to employees feeling disrespected, Beddies said he was not aware of any such cases as none have been reported to his office. ‘We have a company grievance procedure and it is open to any employee who feels aggrieved,’ he said. Leading Lodges has seven tourism establishments in Namibia and employs 260 staff. Despite the financial crisis experienced in the tourism industry worldwide, Beddies said he is proud that Leading Lodges in Namibia is one of the companies that has not had to retrench staff or close down operations.