Young women still penniless

MBOMBELA- While the country commemorates the role played by the youth of 1976 in fighting apartheid,a number of youth in the province still face unemployment, inequality and poverty.

Three women recently lost their jobs when they were apparently fired without any valid reason, and are part of the thousands of jobless youth in the country.

They were allegedly employed in 2007 and had since been able to put food on the table for their families. This was until February 17 when their employer apparently fired them because he allegedly had no money to pay them.

“We were just dismissed without having any hearing of misconduct or whatsoever with the employer. “We believe we were sidelined for
his own personal gain. We then took the matter to the CCMA where investigations were done and the employer was ordered to pay us before May 22 but until today he hasn’t,” explained Ms Delsiwe Masuku.

“We want to know when the employer will pay us as ordered by the CCMA, because as things are now, it’s difficult even to go around looking for jobs.

We also plead with the National Youth Development Fund and the Small Enterprise Development Agency to assist us in starting our own business because we have learnt a lot in terms of growing and taking care of flowers from the six years of experience from Timbali Technology Incubator.

The only disadvantage is that we were not presented with any certificates,” added Ms Busi Mahlalela and Ms Zanele Mathebula.
Documents from the CCMA, which are in Mpumalanga News’ possession,
showed that their dismissal was not procedural and substantively unfair.

“I order the respondent (Timbali Technology Incubator) to pay each of the three six months’ compensation of R2 289 each which sums up to R41 202.” The respondent was supposed to start paying the first amount on May 22 via electronic banking, which he had not done, according to the document.

Attempts to obtain comment from the business’ manager proved fruitless at the time of going to print.