By Neo Kolane
Government’s efforts to bring Lesotho’s ailing clothing and textile industry back on its feet and save jobs suffered a major knock this week after another factory closed shop in Maputsoe in the Leribe district.
The owners of Ace Apparel (Pty) Ltd located at Ha Maqele reportedly pulled a fast one on workers by disappearing over the weekend without paying them their salaries for December and other benefits.
The foreign-owned factory which manufactures denim clothing employs about 1,100 workers who have now been left stranded.
The company is owned by a pair of Afrikaners who reside in Rosendal, a small farming town in the Free State province but would commute to Maputsoe daily.
Trade, industry, business development and tourism minister Mokehthi Shelile yesterday told a press conference that the government had learnt that the factory owners had fled to the Netherlands where they originally come from, and government would pursue their extradition to Lesotho.
The secretary general of the National Clothing Textile and Allied Workers Union (NACTWU), Tṥepang Makakole, said when workers reported for work on Monday, they could not access the factory because door locks had been changed.
“The owners have vanished into thin air without any explanation.
“The factory workers are left stranded; they are practically jobless as we speak,” he said.
Makakole noted that local managers entrusted with manning the factory could not open the doors on Monday morning as the locks had been switched.
“This means the administrators have disappeared,” he said.
Makakole revealed that this is not the first incident of this kind in the clothing and textile sector, after Lesotho Umbrella, Peter Blond and CMT Trading factories investors absconded in the past.
Makakole pointed out that foreign investors often do this when they run into debt.
“When they have to lawfully close the factory, it means they will have to pay their debts and many a time they do not have the resources to.
“They usually run off and leave everything behind in the hope that the workers will help themselves to anything of value to recoup their losses,” he noted.
One of the forsaken workers, Pulane Lekhanya, said when they got to work before 7 am on Monday, everything appeared normal.
It was only after 7 am that human resources officers informed the workers that the locks had been switched, she told theReporter in an interview.
All the while, the company’s local managers could not get of the directors as their phones rang unanswered, Lekhanya said.
She added that the firm’s human resources (HR) manager reported the matter to the police who, upon inspection of the scene, concluded there was no break-in.
The manager and the police officers later went to the Maputsoe border gate to find information on the factory owners, but were advised to call the ministries of labour in Lesotho and South Africa.
A distraught Lekhanya further told this publication that they were looking forward to December salaries and their leave payments, but now they do not know who is going to pay them.
“We were counting on the last salary of the year to travel home for the festive, pay rentals and children’s school fees in January,” she said.
“An auction will be held where the factory’s assets will be sold to recover money to pay off its creditors. These include taxes due to Revenue Services of Lesotho; and LNDC as the factory’s tenant,” he explained.
According to the Lesotho Labour Council (LLC) approximately 20, 000 workers have lost their jobs in the clothing and textile industry since 2019. About half of these were retrenched this year alone, with more expected to be sent home packing.
The sector, which is the second largest employer after the government, continues to perform poorly largely owing to declining orders from the United States, the major importer of Lesotho’s apparel.
Devastating effects of the Covid-19 pandemic are also still being felt as desperate local firms close shop or lay off employees for months on end hoping that the industry will gradually pick up. But this is unlikely, experts say.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has also worsened the textile industry’s quagmire in the past two years as orders dwindle further due to lack of demand for Lesotho’s apparel.
Meanwhile, Shelile and the minister of labour and employment, Tṥeliso Mokhosi, assured the distressed workers on Wednesday that the government has found a new investor to continue with operations at the factory.
Lekhanya said the two ministers informed them that the employer will arrive on Friday (today) and meet with the factory’s management to discuss operations going forward.
“They promised to hunt down the investor who has absconded, and told us new investors are coming.
“The two ministers promised to escalate the issue of unpaid salaries to prime minister Sam Matekane, who they say has already been briefed about the situation.
“We don’t know how they will resolve the matter, but they gave us reason to hope. As things stand, we are going to the festive season impecunious,” she said.
This was later confirmed by the minister himself at a press conference yesterday.
In September this year, Shelile said Matekane had revealed that the government had secured orders already for available factory shells at Ha Tikoe.
Shelile said Lesotho would soon start designing and manufacturing apparel for direct export to the USA, unlike presently when the designing is being done in Taiwan.
“This will be beneficial to Lesotho as we’ll no longer need Taiwan to do it for us. The money we save from this will be for labour and utilities such as water and electricity,” he explained. However, this is yet to happen.
Meanwhile, labour lawyer Rethabile Sakoane described the conduct of Ace Apparel (Pty) Ltdas downright criminal, given that this has been happening since the 1990’s.
Sakoane said there needs to be money deposited for security purposes so that in the event that investors flee, workers will be able to get their severance pay.
“When the employer leaves workers stranded there is nothing the government can do to pay them.
“The responsibility in the employment lies between the employer and the employee, so when they flee, the labour commissioner can only go as far as identify or track down the employer,” she explained.
She added that the labour commissioner does not have the ability to do anything else besides closing down the factory.
Sakoane urged LNDC to tighten conditions and make sure investors have collateral security so that workers are not stranded should the former disappear.
Acting LNDC chief executive officer Molise Ramaili yesterday outlined the undertakings and safeguards that LNDC puts in place to ensure the welfare of Basotho factory workers.
Ramaili said when a foreign investor comes to Lesotho, LNDC wants information such as the kind of business the investor will be undertaking and who he does business with.
“Without this intel we are let frustrated when a factory shuts down. When we know their buyers, we are able to alert them that the investor is closing down so the buyer can cut ties with the investor,” he noted.
Ramaili indicated that LNDC has had several cases of absconding investors; it happened five times while Shelile was still employed by LNDC where he worked for 17 years.
On the issue of observance of Lesotho’s labour laws, Ramaili said: “Our strategy is based on collaboration. As LNDC when we talk about labour laws, we work closely with the ministry of labour and employment. We meet every month with the Interim Ministerial Task Team, the trade unions, the minister of labour and that of trade, Revenue Services Lesotho, Water and Sewerage Company, and Lesotho Electricity Company to discuss everything relating to the economy.
“Labour issues come under the spotlight a lot in these meetings. LNDC has a dedicated investment and trade promotion department called Aftercare, which helps investors on all issues relating to their work and their employee, on industrial relations.”
Asked about LNDC’s plans to ensure the practice stops repeating itself, Ramaili explained that transparency and honesty are important in business.
“As LNDC, when we go to other countries, we look at businesses that have long been working in those countries. One of the mechanisms is that when an investor arrives and rent is paid, they are expected to pay a deposit for three months on the expectation that if they do not function well, they inform us.
“If a foreign investor engages in illegal acts while in the country and takes flight, we invoke extradition process,” he pointed out.
