‘All we want is our money' — Nsimbi miners holding SA managers hostage in Mozambique
Three Nsimbi Mining managers remain confined at a Mozambican coal mine office as angry workers demand months of unpaid wages. The standoff, fuelled by financial woes and withheld passports, has left staff stranded, desperate, and on the brink of survival.
Workers at Nsimbi Mining's Tete operations in Mozambique have continued to prevent three of the company's managers from leaving the mine's offices, believing they want to flee the country without paying workers their outstanding wages.
South Africans Japie du Toit and Shedrick Festus, as well as Mozambican Mary Chuva, have been confined since Tuesday, 29 April. Workers insist they will not release the officials until outstanding payments are made.
Bernardo Sibangani, a former drilling manager who later became a superintendent at Nsimbi, said that while the detained officials were unharmed and could eat and move freely within the office, their confinement stemmed from rumours that Du Toit intended to leave Mozambique without settling outstanding wages.
Du Toit told Daily Maverick on Thursday that he was 'tied up in negotiations' with the workers. He previously said he needed to travel to South Africa for medical reasons.
Although Du Toit told Daily Maverick that 25 to 30 employees were blockading the offices and preventing his departure, Club of Mozambique reported on the same day that about 200 workers had been on strike since Monday, 28 April.
'The situation is still the same as yesterday, and because it is Workers' Day today, I do not expect any progress. The sympathy will be with the workers and not the employers today,' Du Toit said on Thursday.
Nsimbi Mining MD Craig Dube said on Thursday, 'We are in the middle of negotiations now.'
Nsimbi Mining, headquartered in Kempton Park, Gauteng, provides support services to the Moatize Coal Mine in Tete, operated by Vulcan International, part of India's sprawling Jindal Group.
Months without pay
Dube previously claimed workers were demanding wages for stretches when they had not worked due to political unrest in the country, which employees have strenuously denied. They insist that the real issue is months of unpaid wages for work already completed.
Nicolus Molapo, a senior survey employee, recounted how he and others went without pay from January to March 2024. He said this had forced him to resign, only to be recalled in June 2024 when the company needed his skills. Even then, payments remained chronically late and communication from management was virtually nonexistent.
'People were working for months without pay. We had no money for food and electricity, nothing to send home to our families,' Molapo told Daily Maverick.
'All we want is our money… The one thing that is frustrating everyone [is] there is zero communication,' he said, sharing screenshots of his attempts to communicate with the company and its lack of response.
Molapo painted a stark picture of a mounting personal crisis.
'We are eating the last eggs and pap. I do not have a plan for tomorrow. I was gone for over a month, but have nothing to show for it… The banks want money, not papers of promises from the company.'
He said several colleagues had already been evicted from their homes after failing to pay rent, a fate he fears he may soon face.
The crisis extends beyond unpaid employees. A former supplier, speaking anonymously to Daily Maverick, described a parallel pattern of broken promises since March 2024, with initial on-time payments devolving into mounting arrears and currently stands at about R600,000 still owed by Nsimbi.
The supplier, who invested heavily to fulfil orders, said they had halted deliveries in early August 2024 after unpaid invoices forced them into debt.
'I borrowed to supply them and never got paid,' the supplier said.
One of the workers, Sibangani, said he had started a small business to provide food and drinks on credit to colleagues in the hope they would be paid.
'I personally have a restaurant and I have been assisting South African colleagues with food and drinks, hoping to be paid when they are paid, but now I'm risking closing the restaurant because they have not been paid since January and still need assistance,' he said.
Stranded without passports
Several South African workers claimed that they were unable to leave Mozambique because the company was allegedly withholding their passports.
'Most of us went there without visas. Upon arrival, Mary Chuva, the HR manager for Nsimbi, asked for our passports so that they can hand them to the Mozambican immigration office for visas. For some, those passports were not returned until recently,' Molapo said.
Others were still waiting for their passports.
'At this point in time, there are some who have their South African families willing to pick them [up], but because the company [has] their passports, they have no way of leaving,' Sibangani said.
Nsimbi's Dube told Daily Maverick, 'The passports for some expats were submitted for visa renewal, so we are waiting for them.'
Struggling to stay afloat
Dube acknowledged the company's longstanding financial difficulties, noting that the challenges predated Du Toit's appointment as manager. Du Toit was brought in after the previous management team was removed due to evidence of corruption and mismanagement, which prompted a full restructuring and audit of the company.
Dube did not dispute that workers had gone unpaid, explaining that the company had invested heavily in new production machinery and communicated these financial constraints to employees.
He said that, despite these pressures, Nsimbi intended to pay outstanding wages, but was further hampered by unresolved banking issues that prevented scheduled payments from being processed. He did not respond directly to questions about workers' comments that they wanted what was due to them, rather than for work they didn't do while the mine was closed due to political unrest.
According to Dube, discussions with potential equity partners are at advanced stages and should be concluded before the end of this month (May).
'We want them to continue working. We want the company to come out of this position soon… We have to secure our employees' jobs and at the same time make sure that the business is sustainable in the long run,' Dube said. DM
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