Letter to Denel and ministers: You are acting in your own interest

22 October 2020

This week, Solidarity addressed a letter to Denel’s board of directors, as well as to several ministers, including Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordan and Finance Minister Tito Mboweni, to deal with the government’s inability to assist Denel appropriately in executing its turnaround plans timeously.

In the letter Solidarity accuses the ministers of only supporting each other and Denel in public, but that their actions are not in line with their narrative and that they are therefore not acting in the best interests of Denel and its employees, or in public interest. The accusation is made as Denel still has not given effect to a court ruling that obliges it to pay its employees’ salaries that are in arrears as well as other statutory deductions, and because certain divisions still fail to pay full salaries.

On 28 August, the Labour Court granted an urgent application to Solidarity for a complaint of contempt of court against Denel as Denel had disregarded the ruling given against it on 4 August.

“It is totally unacceptable that the state does not want to accept responsibility for its entities. It is due to historical mistakes of mismanagement and maladministration committed by the state and its cohorts that, today, Denel cannot stay afloat financially. However, it is not the government employees and their cadres who bear the consequences, but loyal workers who, among others things, have to foot the bill by sacrificing their salaries,” HelgardCronjé, sector coordinator for defence and aviation at Solidarity said.

At the moment, Denel does not pay full salaries to its employees and still does not fulfil its other contractual and statutory obligations. Meanwhile, Denel has also announced retrenchments in four of its divisions.

Solidarity proposed several solutions to Denel to enable this entity to turn itself around. However, it requires the support of the state as well as adapting its prolonged decision-making and implementation strategy which results in it taking up to 18 months for actions to be executed.

“We, however, do not rely solely on this letter. At the moment, Solidarity is in the process of obtaining a warrant which we can enforce on Denel to recover the salary arrears and other fees due to our members. Moreover, we regard the continued non-payment of salaries and its non-compliance with other contractual and statutory obligations as a unilateral change to the conditions of employment, and in this regard we are currently investigating further action against Denel. Solidarity will protect the interests of our members all along and will support them in any of the retrenchment processes Denel has announced,” Cronjé concluded.

Read the letter here.

Issued by Helgard Cronjé, Sector Coordinator: Defence and aviation, 22 October 2020