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Cape Town - Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) [JSE:AMS] has sued South African debt collectors over allegations they deducted fees from the salaries of employees that were more than three times higher than the legal maximum.
Klerksdorp-based law firm Hannetjie van der Merwe and HVDM Administrators, which acted on behalf of various creditors, charged some workers an average of 44% in fees for collecting debt, compared with the 12.5% permitted for administrators under South African law, Amplats said in a lawsuit filed at the High Court in Pretoria.
“Debtors under administration find that they become a species of indentured labour, working to pay off administrators as well as creditors - often for indefinite periods,” Amplats CEO Chris Griffith said in the papers.
South African mineworker indebtedness contributed to higher pay demands, leading up to the platinum-mining strikes that saw at least 44 people killed in Marikana in 2012 and the five-month stoppage at the largest producers last year, Amplats said.
The country’s largest gold producers, including Gold Fields [JSE:GFI] and AngloGold Ashanti [JSE:ANG], said last month that they are working together to challenge court orders that require them to dock employees’ wages in favour of creditors.
Nkangetsang Matlhako, one of seven employees who joined Amplats as an applicant in the case, paid R45 781 for debt arrears from May 2007 to January last year, with 41% of that total being retained by the administrator, the court papers show. Matlhako last year still owed R7 102 of the R29 056 due to his creditors in 2007, the papers said.
