PREMIUM: NDZ and JZ’s daughter in UIF dispute with restaurant employees

A restaurant co-owned by Gugulethu Zuma-Ncube, daughter of Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and former president Jacob Zuma, is embroiled in a bitter dispute with her employees.

The workers claim some of them have not received their Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) benefits and those who did, received it “in dribs and drabs”.

But Zuma-Ncube’s business partner denied that there was anything untoward, saying the fault lay with government and that the business even made emergency payments to workers from their own pockets until the UIF came though.

Minister Dlamini-Zuma is the face of the Covid-19 state of disaster which the government declared in March and is central in the implementation of lockdown regulations.

The UIF Covid-19 Temporary Employer/Employee Relief Scheme (Ters) payments were provided by the government as distress relief to employees whose jobs were affected by the lockdown.

The irate employees, who asked to remain anonymous, told of how they went without salaries since 27 March. This after the Sandton restaurant, Urban Moyo, closed due to the lockdown.

They claimed Zuma-Ncube ignored their pleas for her intervention when her business partner, Theo Moodley, allegedly kept on sending them from pillar to post about their payouts under the Covid-19 UIF Ters.

Zuma-Ncube, who is married to Zimbabwean politician Welshman Ncube, is also the executive producer and co-owner of the company that created SABC1’s Uzalo soapie.

“Theo is always telling us he will follow up, there is a mistake done by the government, they want the government to rectify the payments, but nothing has changed since,” said a senior staff member.

“They pay us our salaries late and we don’t know exactly what our payday is. Theo would put an unreasonable pay date. Gugu doesn’t care, she does not protect us against this man [Theo].”

Most of the employees said the UIF was not paid to some of them and those paid received it in dribs and drabs.

They confirmed that the restaurant, which employed South African and foreign nationals, paid them between R500 and R2 000 as a gift for groceries offered by Zuma-Ncube and Moodley from their own pockets.

Zuma-Ncube declined to comment, saying she was not involved in the restaurant’s operation. But she confirmed that she is co-owner of the business.

She referred The Citizen to Moodley, who said the employees were paid their UIF Ters benefits according to the amounts paid to the company.

He said an initial payout of R4 000 was received on behalf of the employees, but the restaurant was unhappy as it was inadequate for all the workers and requested a review.

“Each time they paid us from the UIF, we paid the workers. We paid them up to the end of last month [June],” Moodley said.

He said they paid a total of R39 238.87 to 11 employees on Tuesday and a further R33 301.95 was paid to the staff in May.

Moodley said this was not all the money expected but that’s what was received from the UIF Ters.

He confirmed that as the restaurant, they paid between R500 and R2 000 stipends from their own pockets for each of the staff as a temporary measure until the UIF money was fully paid.

“We did this because we know their situation,” Moodley said.

– ericn@citizen.co.za

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