Staff Reporter

A GROUP of 23 males who have been employed aboard the Heinaste vessel, owned by Fishrot-linked firm ArcticNam, declare that they’re nonetheless combating tooth and nail to get their payouts after the workplace of the Labour Commissioner ordered the corporate to pay N$1.8 million in 2021.

The males, who have been retrenched in 2018, have been employed by ArcticNam, which was established in 2013 by fishing rights holders Epango, Sinco, and Yukor Fishing, together with Icelandic fishing large Samherji, to use horse mackerel quotas of Namibian rights holders and finalise the multi-million funding into the fishing trawler Heinaste.

In a witness assertion, Ipinge Imanuel, talking on behalf of the employees, stated, “On 31 December 2018, we were unfairly dismissed by ArcticNam. We then referred a labour dispute of unfair dismissal to the Office of the Labour Commissioner. On 24 June 2021, the plaintiffs obtained an arbitral award against ArcticNam. The combined judgment debt is N$1,825,884.00 plus interest of 20% per year, calculated from 24 June 2021 (i.e., the date of the arbitral award) until final payment.”

He added that the arbitral award stays unhappy within the declare introduced in opposition to Esja Investments (Pty) Limited (first defendant), Egill Helgi Arnason (second defendant), and ArcticNam Fishing (Pty) Limited (third defendant). ArcticNam is 49% owned by Esja Investments, a subsidiary of Samherji.

“As we were making attempts to enforce the arbitration award, we also contacted the different directors of ArcticNam. The only directors that we could contact were the Namibian directors. They personally informed me that the Icelandic owners were in control of the financial affairs of ArcticNam and that they had moved the monies that ArcticNam generated out of Namibia,” Imanuel stated.

He added that it was clear that Esja Investments and Egill Helgi Arnason (because the Managing Director) have been and are knowingly carrying on the enterprise of ArcticNam recklessly and/or with intent to defraud collectors of ArcticNam, together with the 23 staff who’re the plaintiffs within the matter.

They additional accused the defendants of concocting a scheme designed to defraud the Namibian State and/or the Namibia Revenue Agency and/or the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources and/or the collectors of ArcticNam by unlawfully transferring massive quantities of cash out of Namibia, leaving ArcticNam with out the required funds to pay the remuneration of the plaintiffs and different collectors.

Irene Rodriguez Pascual, treasury supervisor, stated she was instructed to be a treasury supervisor of ArcticNam and Esja Namibia, the primary and third defendants.

“During or about 24 October 2018, a meeting of the board of directors of ArcticNam was held at the offices of ArcticNam in Walvis Bay. From the minutes of this board meeting, it is evident that notice of retrenchment and severance pay of local crew employed by ArcticNam was given, according to paragraph 6 of the minutes, and also that there were sufficient funds available to pay all creditors, including salaries, until the end of 2018,” Pascual stated.

She added that the payroll cost requested was for the sum of N$2,005,947.10 (N$2 million).

“The payroll was supported by the individual payslips of the local crew members. I refer to the bank statement No. 193 of ArcticNam, which clearly reflects the payment of N$2,005,947.10 on 18 December 2018. As can be seen from exhibit 5 on the bank statement of ArcticNam, only the total payroll payment is reflected, not each and every payment to individual crew members. That is why the defendants requested during the discovery process that the plaintiffs should provide their individual bank statements for this period. They refused to do so. I believe that was to deliberately avoid disclosing that they did, in fact, receive retrenchment payments, including the bonuses. In addition, I can confirm that none of these payments were returned,” Pascual stated.

She added that three of the plaintiffs weren’t everlasting staff and thus don’t qualify for a severance payout, and stated that not one of the plaintiffs talked about something to the arbitrator in regards to the retrenchment or bonus funds that they had obtained. “They still do not mention anything about it in their witness statements,” Pascual stated.