PSMI workers escalate strike
…call for board dismissal and threaten property attachments
By Delicious Mathuthu and Harry Taruva
Troubled Premier Service Medical Investments (PSMI) workers have escalated their strike accross the country threatening to attach the company’ properties to recover their salaries.
The workers are also demanding the dismissal of the entity’s board and secretariat.
PSMI workers representatives accross the country have called for a strike beginning Friday 17 February 2023.
Contentious issues that have brought the company to its knees include none payment of salaries and allowances for the past three to six months.
The workers are also demanding the dismissal or resignation of all board members and PSMI secretariat which they accuse of being at the centre the firm’s turmoil.
The employees say the PSMI board’s 5 year mandate has expired.
Speaking to Kwedu news in Gweru, one of the PSMI Works Council representatives, who preferred not to be named, said all they want are their salary arrears and sanity restored at the firm to secure their jobs.
“We want money that we are owed by the company so that we can resume work without any disturbances.
“But as it is right now, it seems the company is not willing to reach a consensus with workers.
“So as a result we are now doing what each one of us is able to do.
“We didnt come to work so that we can look for finances elsewhere and invest in PSMI.
“We came to work to earn money to feed our families,” the representative said.
He further said they were only given a paltry Z$55 000 for the past four months, from October 2022 to January 2023.
They said they have not been paid their allowances for the past 8 months, stretching from June last year.
PSMI employees on Thursday (16 February) wrote a letter to the Health and Childcare Ministry Permanent Secretary, Air Commodore Jasper Chimedza, demanding dialogue to solve the standoff.
The letter, in possession of Kwedu News, also accuses the same Permanent Secretary’s office of looking the other way as the company collapses.
They said Air Commodore Dr Chimedza currently stands-in for the board whose 5 year mandate has since lapsed, accusing their bosses of grand corruption and nepotism which has also led to a blotted staff complement at the institution.
Earlier last month, the company’s Acting Managing Director, Dr. George Kutoka threatened to with-hold salaries for all PSMI employees not at work.
The workers’ representative however said “No Work, No Pay” threats will not work.
“If you threaten a hungry person you are doing nothing. If you want to assist a hungry person give them that which they want.”
“We are not asking for a lot, we are the workers that were generating these funds all along so that what we call PSMAS (Premier Service Medical Aid Society) remains operating.
“So that the card holder is happy because they find PSMAS open.
“Now PSMI is in sh!+ and they act like there is nothing that ever happened at PSMAS, and the shareholder is quiet,” he said.
PSMAS is the mother company, founded in 1930, that founded PSMI and its subsidiaries in 2003.
On the reported financial injection from government, workers said the injection is only in newspapers and not reality on the ground.
One of the employees who also spoke on condition of anonymity said currently PSMI subsidiaries are just open for prestigious reasons only so that the authorities say its working.
“No worker has received anything, what kind of evil is that, but the Directors are busy giving each other monies for fuel and upkeep.
“What is said in the newspapers and what is on the ground are two different things.
“Actually, a lot of people who we owe money at home are after us saying government gave us money but we never got anything.
“At PSMI facilities right now if you come you will not be attended to because there no doctors and nurses but when they speak in the newspapers they say we are open,” she said.
Employees allege that massive looting, corruption and abuse of office by the company bosses and board has brought PSMI to its knees, with some having been arrested while others are still in the system.
They said all people responsible for the company’s collapse should be removed.
“Those who have failed to do their job should go home and those supposed to be arrested get arrested so that the company can be revived.
“PSMI Board participated and led the company into this crisis.
“The current board for PSMI has soiled hands and is seriously compromised as they were the beneficiaries of the abuse of office and fraudulent activities that have executives suspended.
“The board is incapacitated to exercise their fiduciary duty and exercise their powers in good faith and for the benefit of the business.
“We now need people with brains and empathy,” the employees said.
PSMAS is said has since insulated itself from PSMI by identifying 900 health service providers in the country to serve all PSMAS medical aid card holders.
About 95% of civil servants in the country are under PSMAS.
It is also alleged that PSMAS owes PSMI Z$13 billion but cannot disburse the funds in fear of funding a rotten system that will loot the money.
In order to release the funds, PSMAS a d employees are said to have proposed two possible solutions after the removal of the current board, either to have Heads of Department operating and reporting direct to PSMAS authorities or have only two Directors remaining, one in the operations department and the other in the services.
Contacted for comment over the challenges, the PSMI Acting Managing Director, Dr. Kutoka declined to comment demanding proof first that these reporters were indeed journalists.
“Its extremely difficult because I have no way of proving that you are who you say you are.
“Give me proof of who you say you are and you are what you say you are,” he said before dropping the call.
PSMI was founded in 2003 and has grown to become one of the largest private healthcare providers in Zimbabwe with 126 service centres strategically spread across the country.
The centres are managed through Medical Clinics, Rehabilitation Services, Dental Clinics, Service Radiology, Premier Service Pharmaceuticals, Renal Services, Premier Optometry Services, Hospitals, Clinical laboratories and EMRAS.
Some of the hospitals under PSMI include Claybank Hospital in Gweru, Shashi Hospital in Bindura, Hillside Hospital, Chiredzi Hospital and Parkview Renal Hospital.
Kwedu Classics
Your story our story