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Ishemunyoro Chingwere Business Reporter
Employees at Cairns Foods are reportedly disgruntled over the handling of human resources issues by the consultancy that was unprocedurally awarded the contract by the company, The Herald Business has learnt. Cairns Foods has been on the rebound after coming out of judicial management that was presided over by Grant Thornton and Camelsa’s Mr Reggie Saruchera from November 2012 to 2015.

The rebound has been preceded by fresh capital injection from Takura Capital Partners, which has seen the reduction in operating costs through staff rationalisation and catering for the firms’ immediate short-term funding needs including working and low cost capital needs. But sources close to the company said employees are agitated over the handling of human resource issues, which they said have the potential to affect production.

“There are murmurs of discontent within the company,” said a source who declined to be named. There is a feeling that management unprocedurally awarded a human resource consultancy contract to an unfit for the job firm (name withheld). The consultant went on to bungle some human resource issues including the payment of contract workers resulting in Cairns being dragged to the labour court. The question that begs for an answer is how they ended up awarding the contract to that consultant if he was no fit for the job?” queried the source.

It is further alleged that after withdrawing the contract from the bungling consultant, the job was given to another consultant who is said to have links to the first consultant’s director. While conceding that there had been some problems regarding the handling of their human resource portfolio by an outsourced consultant, Cairns chief executive officer Nancy Guzha, said the contract was procedurally awarded.

“(The contract) was procedurally awarded a contract (via our multidisciplinary Procurement Committee) with Cairns Foods in April of this year, having checked with references in the market,” said Guzha.

“It later came to our attention that they were not timeously paying the labour that they had availed to Cairns, at which point their contract with Cairns Foods was cancelled. We are unaware of any relationship between (the former consultant and the current) save that (a director with the former) is their (current consultant) former employee,” she said. One of the most established food processors having started operations in 1947, Cairns went off the rails after the country adopted a multi-currency regime ,which saw the company being weighed down by a $10 million debt that later pushed them into judiciary management in 2012.