ZAMBIA Sugar PLC has been taken to the Lusaka High Court by 909 current and former workers who accused the country’s largest sugar producer of withholding long-service gratuities and related benefits in breach of a 2003 collective agreement.
According to a statement of claim filed on May 21, lead plaintiff Abraham Kapembe and 908 co-workers, some unionised under the National Union of Plantation and Agricultural Allied Workers (NUPAAW) and others in management, asserted that Zambia Sugar unilaterally diverted their accrued gratuities into the company’s Defined Contribution Pension Scheme.
The workers said the collective agreement, effective April 2, 2003 to March 31, 2025, allowed gratuities to be replaced by the new pension plan only if several safeguards were met, including direct payment of gratuity balances into employees’ bank accounts and prior ministerial approval of the scheme.
The plaintiffs argued that neither condition was satisfied. Instead, they alleged, the company posted the gratuity balances to the pension fund without consent and began deducting additional contributions from salaries even though the Ministry of Labour and Social Security had not approved the scheme.
Employees who remained on the payroll sought the immediate payment of their full long-service gratuities. In the alternative, should the pension plan eventually be regularize, they demanded a recalculation of individual pension accounts to include Zambia Sugar’s matching contribution of 14 percent on the diverted gratuity sums, plus accrued interest. Retired staff accepted that they had already drawn down pension benefits, yet contended those benefits were undervalued because the company failed to credit the 14 percent employer match.
They also claimed that Zambia Sugar did not pay contractually mandated repatriation allowances, leaving them with what the suit described as “significant financial and logistical challenges” after retirement.
Both groups asked the court to order a full audit of the Defined Contribution Pension Scheme and the older Defined Benefit plan, dating back to 2008, to identify any surplus funds and uncredited contributions.
They sought interest and costs.
