Staff Writer
Sophia Shaningwa, the Secretary General of Swapo, has refuted accusations made by the Namibia Economic Freedom Fighters (NEFF) that Ali Dharani, the Director of the Rani Group of Companies, gave her orders to free detained Indian and Angolan nationals.
“How could I order for them to be released? It is all nonsense and you were supposed to tell them yourself because firstly I don’t even work for the Ministry of Home Affairs and i am not the minister to run immigration affairs. Where does SWAPO secretary General come in this story?,” said Shaningwa.
The foreign nationals were allegedly arrested by the Namibia Immigration for not have the relevant documents to reside in Namibia as foreign nationals.
“Last year the Namibian immigration had arrested some Indians and Angolans who did not
have any documents to be in the country, however instead of being deported the owner of
Rani gave instruction to Sophia Shaningwa the secretary general for the Indians to be
released with immediate effect. The owner of Rani is Ali Ndhalalni who is a big donor of the ruling party, Ali often brags about how untouchable he is, because he has the entire top leadership of the ruling party eating from his pockets and it is for that reason that the ministry of labour never acts against him, despite the fact that he is exploiting, mistreating, overworking and underpaying our people as little as N$900.00 per month, “read the statement by NEFF.
Additionally, NEFF demanded that Rani rectifies the working conditions of its workers.
Amongst the demands were that workers be hired directly by the company and given permanent contracts, be paid a basic salary of N$2,500.00 per month and workers to be paid overtime, Sundays and Public Holidays.
Last year, over 100 employees of the Rani Group of companies working for one of its Cash & Carry supermarkets at Rundu petitioned to their management over unfair treatment, low wages and poor working conditions.
Rani Group of Comapanies is an Indian owned retail business that is operating in Namibia.
