Ex-Baylor workers up in arms over terminal pay

LINEO MALATALIANA

MASERU – Former employees of a project administered under Baylor College of Medicine Children’s Foundation Lesotho are up in arms over delayed terminal benefits payment since their retrenchment last September. They alleged Baylor is deliberately refusing to pay them with the intent to make them suffer.

While Baylor is said to have blamed the delay on miscalculations, the former employees would have none of it saying it is the hallmark of Baylor to always blame inaccuracies when it has to pay.

A representative of a group of former employees of Karabo-ea-Bophelo – who opted to be anonymous – said they have not received their benefit payouts since September, saying “by right Baylor was supposed to pay us within seven days to a month from the date of retrenchment, but we have to date received nothing. And there is no explanation – zilch.”

Karabo-ea-Bophelo is a project under Baylor and was tasked with helping families with vulnerable children especially those affected by HIV and employed 104. It is odd that employees from sub-contractors of Karabo-ea-Bophelo have been paid their full benefits, the former employees fume while they “languish in poverty with their benefits intentionally held up.”

The delay has caused a disruption in the lives of the employees with some according the source experiencing mental health issues blamed on the financial strain.

“We had a WhatsApp group which was dissolved when employees expressed their struggle with mental health,” the representative said. The source explained that the employees were retrenched in two groups, the first was released from duty on September 30 and the second on December 31, 2024.

Responding to the payments delays, Baylor Executive Director, Lineo Thahane, said the organisation recognises the frustration of the delay and have apologised to the former employees.

Thahane mentioned they have been in constant communication with the group to inform them on the progress of payments.

“We have informed the team that we are experiencing administrative hiccups in processing payments. There are factors to consider and look over to ensure that the team gets what is rightfully due to them,” Thahane said.

She further said although they are experiencing delays, payments are slowly trickling in for some employees adding some have received paid today (Thursday). Baylor currently has 300 staffers with Thahane saying “it is a lengthy process to ensure payments are processed correctly since we are short staffed working on a project that has been closed,” Thahane said when questioned.

Out of 104 employees from Karabo-ea-Bophelo, the paper has ascertained that 74 plus had not received their payments as at yesterday.

One of the former employees has waited for payments since July 2024 – a whooping seven months without salary and no alternative. While the group has contemplated court action, the said they lacked financial capacity to do so. “We would have to hire a lawyer and the case may drag long in courts. We are appealing to anyone to help,” the rep said. On Tuesday when the managements got wind that the payment complainants Baylor made efforts to convene a meeting with the complainants to address the issue and contain media fallout.

The meeting proved fruitless with the rep saying, “there was nothing pleasing. They told us the same old story of miscalculations which have caused a delay with issues at Revenue Services Lesotho (RSL). Granted three to four people have received payment out of the group but this has become a culture for Baylor to delay payments and blame it on miscalculations,” the rep further said.

It transpired during the meeting that of the 74 people in the group, calculations for 23 of them had been correctly done since September. Till today, none of the 23 has received any payment form Baylor. Public Eye spoke to Thahane after the meeting on Wednesday and she was enthusiastic saying, “the meeting was fine; we gave our former employees a detailed account on what is causing the delays. We experienced miscalculations on our side and this caused miscommunication with the RSL.”   

“Otherwise all is well,” she said, adding that “the employees, ex-employees, were reassured that they will receive their terminal benefits soon.” Thahane gave assurances the issue is being solved, highlighting that on Tuesday 15 were paid. The organization is committed to reporting to the group on a daily basis Thahane added.        

The project under which the former employees worked ran from October 2019 and closed in September 2024.