Staff Reporter
SECURITY guards employed by CIS Security Services and deployed at the NaTIS offices at Oshakati were left in the dark when the contract between their employer and the Roads Authority (RA) was terminated at the end of February.
The five guards continued working their normal day and night shifts until a stranger arrived and broke the news.
“A stranger arrived here on the evening of February 28 and told us that his company is taking over on the 1st of March as the new security contractor. We listened attentively but did not believe him because, if it were true, our supervisor would have informed us beforehand.
“Additionally, the stranger did neither bring along any documentary proof nor show us any identification card,” said one of the affected guards.
The stranger spoke to the two highly suspicious female guards on a night shift.
They suspected that the man was a criminal on a spying mission or was there to distract them, but after a few telephone calls, they discovered that the stranger was actually telling them the truth.
He is Simon Kalola, a supervisor at Onamangongwa, the new security contractor that was to take over the guarding duties on March 1.
He offered employment to two of five stranded guards.
But there was a serious problem.
The five guards were unpaid for several months and there were items they needed to give back to their previous employer, including the uniforms, a shotgun and ammunition, batons and a pair of handcuffs.
The gun was eventually handed over to the police for safekeeping and the matter was reported to the Labour Commissioner’s office.
The two parties were brought together Friday.
CIS Security Services representative Branton Sankombo’s claim that the guards were not paid because no money was received from the RA was proved false on the spot when labour officials telephoned the RA and were told that the RA does not owe the CIS any money.
The issue of CIS Security Services not paying its employees on time was, in fact, the reason why the RA decided to terminate the contract.
Sankombo promised that the five abandoned guards will be paid all their outstanding wages, but did not say when.
One guard is owed 17 days wages estimated to be N$1 200, while those with three to four months of outstanding wages are owed between N$5 500 and N$8 000.
“We thank Onamangongwa for hiring some of us, but we fail to understand how our former employer, a supposedly reputable company, managed to abandon us without paying our wages. They even forgot to collect their shotgun and handcuffs,” said one of the affected guards.
Meanwhile, the guards said that their new employer did pay their wages for March, their first month of employment, on time.
They all preferred to remain anonymous.
