Admarc, ex-staff tussle over eviction

Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (Admarc) and its former employees are locked in a battle over the eviction of the retrenched workers from institutional houses.

Admarc set the May 31 2024 as a deadline for the eviction of the former employees, but the ex-staff say the move is in contravention of a court order.

In a May 22 2024 repatriation reminder, Admarc director of corporate services Ethel Zilirakhasu stated that the time-frame for the exercise was four months from February 1 2024 to May 31 2024.

She said the company reserves the right to evict all ex-employees that would still be occupying the corporation’s houses by the set deadline, stressing that the company will not entertain any repatriation requests outside the window.

“The company wishes to inform all ex-employees who are in its institutional houses that their claims in the Industrial Relations Court [IRC] on overtime and skeleton staff are independent of the repatriation exercise and, therefore, are supposed to be repatriated,” reads the circular.

But in a response dated June 1 2024, the former employees , through t h e i r spokesperson Samuel Katambi, said the company risks being in contempt of court if it proceeds with the eviction exercise.

The letter said some former employees had already communicated about being harassed by Admarc officials who are allegedly forcefully evicting them from the houses.

Reads the response:“We were shocked that Admarc was circulating such a memo when actually there is a court order stopping them from evicting us from the institutional houses. In fact, the said court order has not been challenged and it is still a valid order.

“We, thus, find the decision of Admarc to be in clear violation of the order. We reserve the right to engage our lawyers to move the court for contempt of court against the officials of Admarc.”

Ex -Ad m a r c s t a f f chairperson Austin Panja in an interview yesterday said they will go to court should their former employer proceed with the eviction exercise.

He said: “Admarc management should withdraw the repatriation programme, failing which we will file a case against them for not abiding by the court order of last November.”

W h e n c o n t a c t e d y e s t e r d a y, Adma r c spokesperson Agnes Ndovie said Admarc was aware of court order.

She said: “Admarc also gave the ex employees a chance to be repatriated aware that one of the claims in court was repatriation. They were given four months to individually indicate when they need to be repatriated.

“Alot of the ex employees were repatriated within this period using this circular. Some have not done so. and for those who have deliberately opted not to be repatriated and are still in the houses, Admarc will do whatever is required by the law before the evictions start.”

In a court order on a matter between the ex- Admarc staff versus Admarc and Old Mutual, IRC deputy chairperson Anthony Kapaswiche restrained the firm from conducting the repatriation “until the determination of the main matter or further order of the court”.

Reads the order: “An interim relief is granted in favour of the applicants restraining the first respondent from doing the following… evicting the applicants from the 1st respondent’s institutional houses before paying the repatriation costs.”

On January 29 2024, the IRC in Blantyre faulted Admarc over the manner it fired 3 283 of its staff and ordered that they be compensated for unfair dismissal.

The court’s decision followed an application by 3 283 former Admarc employees led by Alex Malikebu who were dismissed in January last year as part of a restructuring process.