Sasol ex-employees cry foul over exclusion from scheme
Group of retired workers wants share payouts
A group of former Sasol employees is exploring its legal options after the company’s black economic empowerment scheme paid them less than they had expected. The retired employees are complaining that they have been robbed of an opportunity to benefit from the Sasol Inzalo empowerment scheme at the company that they worked for most of their lives. The group claims they were allocated 850 shares each by the company in the Inzalo scheme in 2008.
The broad-based black economic empowerment scheme matured last year. The former workers, who left the company for various reasons, including voluntary retrenchment and early retirement, said they thought the scheme was doing well as the company paid them dividends twice a year during the lifespan of Inzalo.
The group’s chairperson Negros Mbowana told Sowetan that they were in the process of initiating legal action against the multinational. “Sasol came up with a new scheme last year called Khanyisa to replace Inzalo and excluded us from it. We feel they should have included us because Inzalo failed,” he said.
The employees said they were told by the company they would not receive any payment because Inzalo did not do well.
The news devastated them because they had planned their lives around the payout. Msebenzi Mthimunye, 66, who took early retirement in 2016, said his wife wanted to file for divorce when he told her that he would not be receiving the Inzalo payout. He had worked for the company for 31 years.
“My wife did not believe me, she thought she was living with a crook.
“Our families had to intervene. I’d planned to settle some of my debts with the money and when I couldn’t, my wife thought I was hiding the money,” he said. Mthimunye said he used most of his pension payout to renovate his house.
Sasol spokesperson Matebello Motloung said each employee received approximately R57,000 in dividends payout over the 10-year period of the Sasol Inzalo scheme. Motloung said the Sasol share price had not increased sufficiently over the 10 years. “...For there to be any payout for employees, the Sasol share price needed to be R905 per share. The Sasol share price on June 4 2018 was R479 per share.” Motloung said ex-employees who were not employed by Sasol on June 1 2018 were ineligible to participate in the Sasol Khanyisa transaction. The explanation, however, brought little comfort to the retired employees.