The power couple who trashed a clothing empire
Workers’ hopes in tatters after grand promises fail to materialise
NORA Zwane retired after 31 years in the “rag” trade, with R2 000 as her final wages.
Doreen Vilakazi, Zwane’s 50year-old former boss, still holds the keys to a R12.5-million mansion in Sandhurst, an exclusive Johannesburg suburb — with a navy-blue Porsche Cayenne parked in the driveway.
Behind their parting of ways is a story about the implosion of what once was one of South Africa’s leading corporate clothing empires.
Zwane, 61, worked as a line manager at a factory owned by Trubok in Newcastle, KwaZuluNatal. She and hundreds of colleagues spent decades crafting exquisite garments for the likes of Truworths, Woolworths, Stuttafords and Daniel Hechter.
Trubok’s existence now hangs by a thread. Big orders have dried up. Vilakazi is accused of making bad management decisions. Suspicions of asset-stripping swirl on the factory floor.
Doreen and Jerry Vilakazi, the highly respected former CEO of Business Unity South Africa, are a formidable husband-and-wife team in the corporate world. Jerry serves on the National Planning Commission and has accompanied President Jacob Zuma on charm offensives abroad.
The couple purchased Trubok Holdings with loans from the state-owned Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), which hoped about 1 300 jobs would be saved. Four years later, staff numbers have dwindled to about 300 at the factory.
Irate managers, long since de- parted, claim they are owed millions. One is trying to claw back about R500 000 in the courts.
Zwane got an SMS from her bank on the day she left in December. Her last wages had been deposited — R2 000. It was half of what she expected.
But worse was in store for the grandmother from Madadeni, Newcastle. She and 189 others have been told that their provident fund was being liquidated. “I went to Trubok’s offices last week. They told me to go back to Old Mutual,” she said.
Old Mutual has confirmed that the company’s fund was liquidated on November 1 2013. Zwane’s payslip for November shows, curiously, a provident fund deduction of R238. “I went to Old Mutual. They said the company took our money but didn’t pay it over.”
Trubok once had two factories in Newcastle — a cutting room and a production hub — plus another in nearby Charlestown. Palama Investments, run by the Vilakazi couple, purchased the operation when the textile industry faced turbulent times.
There were high hopes when Doreen met staff on her first day as their new boss. “She addressed the people and said we will go from strength to strength,” said a former employee. “She gave a very positive speech on the day she arrived. I was very impressed, especially with Jerry Vilakazi. But I made a moer of a [helluva] mistake.”
“These people made promises they can’t keep,” said former manager Andrew Kirton, who says he is owed R750 000 in shares he had invested.
Some creditors reportedly marched into the single remaining factory to remove equipment. A former employee tried but failed to attach assets.
The South African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union has been granted a court order to attach property at the factory next week to extract severance pay dating back to 2012.
Andre Kriel, general secretary of the union, said a deal was reached with the company on outstanding severance pay that was made an order of court.
“This allows us to attach the company’s assets and to ensure we get the outstanding monies from their severance pay in 2012 owed to workers. On Monday, this order will be handed to the sheriff.”
Kriel said Trubok retrenched 440 workers in 2010 and another 400 in 2012. There have been further retrenchments since.
He said the union had taken steps to ensure that workers “will not receive nothing” from the provident fund currently in liquidation.
IDC spokesman Mandla Mpangase said most of the loan amount still had to be paid back. “To curtail its expenses, the company has sold some of its properties and the IDC expects to get a portion of the proceeds as repayment.”
Clement Chinaka, acting managing director of Old Mutual Corporate, said the case had been reported to the Financial Services Board.
He said the Trubok stake in an Old Mutual SuperFund provident fund — made up of clusters of participating employers — was liquidated in November last year, with 190 people affected.
In a statement, Chinaka said: “When the employer failed to pay the retirement fund contributions which were due, we notified them immediately and followed up with them on several occasions to bring this to their urgent attention.”
Contribution problems with Trubok date back to August 2012.
The statement added that the risk for employees was that death and disability cover stops as soon as the employer stops paying contributions.
However, the contributions paid in respect of the retirement fund savings are under safeguard.