The New Age reports that the trial of a Limpopo farmer accused of abusing and underpaying 300 Zimbabwean farm workers whom he allegedly owed more than R1.6m in respect of the past 10 years has been thrown out of court after witnesses failed to show up.
The 36 witnesses were deported to Zimbabwe at the beginning of the trial late in 2015 because they had no documents, while others were taken off the witness list when they returned to work for the farmer.
The farmer, JT van der Walt, the owner of Johannesburg farm in the Lephalale area, and nine of his managers were charged by the police for the assault and kidnapping of the Zimbabweans.
The Department of Home Affairs had also opened a case against him for employing illegal immigrants, while the Department of Labour had also filed another charge of labour exploitation.
Limpopo labour spokesperson Lerato Makomene confirmed the case had been dismissed. “The case was thrown out of court because there were no witnesses. Our hands are tied as a department without the witnesses,” Makomene indicated.
A worker representative, Thembani Ndlovu, said they had lost touch with some key witnesses now thought to be in Zimbabwe. “It was difficult to locate the witnesses who went back to Zimbabwe because they were undocumented. Some of the witnesses moved to other towns because they couldn’t stay here without jobs. So the case could not go ahead,” Ndlovu said.
The plan was to have the workers paid through the Zimbabwe consulate as soon as the matter was finalised. However, Zimbabwe consul general Henry Mukonoweshuro said some of the workers had returned to work for the farmer because they were under pressure.
“”We had the numbers and we had said we would assist to track them down, but we are not aware of this development,” Mukonoweshuro stated.
Most of the workers had been employed at the farm for more than 10 years. Van der Walt farms maize, tomatoes, onions and potatoes.
Ndlovu claimed that the farmer forced them to work from 5am to 11pm and paid them R70 instead of the government stipulated R103 for an eight-hour shift per day.
The original of this report is on page 2 of The New Age of 10 January 2017
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