swaziland times

PIGG’S PEAK – 73 former employees of three hotels that were recently liquidated will get relief as they will receive €14 million in compensation.

In June 2021, the High Court of Swaziland issued a final order to liquidate five companies under Sun International Management Limited. The companies affected include Swazi Spa Holdings, which operates the SwaziSpa Hotel and Casino, Lugogo Sun and Ezulwini Sun. The former employees of the three hotels will share the money after a liquidation and distribution account was opened on July 31, 2024, and approved by the Office of the Presiding Officer of the High Court. The Office of the Presiding Officer of the High Court approved the liquidation and distribution account on August 14, 2024.

This will benefit the employees, who have filed a claim for €38 million and will receive €14 million, or 41% of their initial claim. This is because the creditors of Sun International Hotels will receive compensation on a pro rata basis, with the cumulative amount for former employees being 41%.Pro rata is a Latin term used to describe proportional distribution, translating to “in proportion.” According to Investopedia, this is a process of dividing the distributed assets in equal proportions, and if an asset is distributed to several people in proportion, a certain amount of the asset is distributed to each person according to his share of the whole. At the same time, according to Nkosingivile Dlamini, all creditors will be paid, and some of them will receive the full amount they are due. The publication has learned that about 25 million euros will be paid to other creditors, including banking institutions.

Liquidator

The funds used to repay the debts were allegedly obtained from the sale of the Swaziland Sun newspaper to the Central Bank of Swaziland (CBE) and the sale of some other movable assets of the company by the liquidators.According to a notice sent by Deputy High Court Judge Lindelwa Magagula to liquidators Paul Mulindwa and Marisa Boxshall-Smith, the accounts had been reviewed and appeared to be in good order. “You are hereby authorised to make the account public and lay it open to the public for inspection for a period of 21 days in accordance with the provisions of Section 343 (2) of the Companies Act 2009. Thereafter, furnish the supervisor with a certificate that you have done so,” Magagula said.

Meanwhile, the celebrations by former employees do not include the 242 former employees of Royal Swaziland Spa Holdings and its subsidiaries who were retrenched in 1992. The Office of the Presiding Judge of the High Court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by 242 former employees of Swaziland Spa Holdings on the grounds that they had allegedly received severance pay in 1992. Magagula informed lawyers representing 242 former employees in a January 2021 letter that problems with the payment of separation benefits were discovered in a schedule of payments to workers submitted as supporting material.

“We found that many elements of the claim were beyond even the employment/labour laws of the Kingdom of Swaziland. The High Court Judge’s Chambers searched frantically but could not find, for example, in the Swaziland Industrial Disputes Act 2000. The only law we came across was the Indian Act and the parts mentioned in the claim were consistent with the Indian Act,” the deputy judge said. Magagula said the legislation did not apply to the Kingdom of Swaziland. She stressed that the retrenchments took place in 1992 and that employees allegedly received severance pay in October 1992.