Babel and Ocean Basket Reportedly Owe Workers R1.3 Million in Wages; Ocean Basket Denies Claims

• The government's raid on Menlyn-based restaurants Babel and Ocean Basket revealed that together they owe their workers over R1 million
• Both restaurants reportedly did not pay their workers the prescribed minimum wage rate, and this amounted to R1.3 million
• South Africans were relieved that action was taken against the restaurants and called for more establishments to be probed
• However, Ocean Basket CEO Grace Harding flatly denied the allegations and set the record straight

Tebogo Mokwena, a dedicated Briefly News current affairs journalist, contributed coverage of international and local social issues like health, corruption, education, unemployment, labour, service delivery protests and heritage in South Africa during his seven years at Daily Sun and Vutivi Business News.

PRETORIA—The government found that two Menlyn-based restaurants, Babel Restaurant and Ocean Basket, owe their workers over R1 million in unpaid wages.

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Restaurants owe workers

According to @IOL, the raid, which included the Hawks, the Department of Labour, and the Department of Home Affairs, yielded more infringements of the country's labour laws. Both restaurants did not comply with the Minimum Wage Act, which states that workers should receive at least R27.58 per hour.

Babel owes its workers, including cleaners and servers, over R560,000 in unpaid wages. The workers received as little as R150 per shift and worked 12 to 15 hours at a time, contravening the Basic Conditions of Employment Act.

View the tweet here:

Ocean Basket speaks to Briefly News

Briefly News requested comment from the restaurants. Ocean Basket CEO, Grace Harding, told Briefly News that the figures are incorrect. She also denied receiving any correspondence from the Department of Labour to corroborate the claims.

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"Absolutely no contact has been made or documentation supplied to us by the Department of Labour as evidence of where they got the figures they released to media or to ask for our co-operation in resolving this," she said.

"We have been referred among personnel at the Department but no one has answered any questions or agreed to meet or supply the evidence supporting these figures. Our call to action is to ask the Department to please join us at the table and work together to understand what has taken place here. We need to review where they got their data from and understand their current procedures.

"We are concerned that they issued a media release without first discussing any findings with us. These actions have had a detrimental effect on our brand’s credibility and reputation," she said.

South Africans infuriated

Netizens were happy that the exploitation was exposed and angry that it happened.

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Akani Nwanati said:

"We must protect the lady who exposed this exploitaton."

Transporter said:

"I bet it's been happening for so long that these scum employers thought they could always get away with it."

Farieda Khan said:

"I blame the Department of Labour! Why aren't they more proactive about conducting inspections?"

Queen of Sheba noted:

"It took one courageous woman to unearth all this."

Space Cowgirl said:

"Spur should be investigated next."

Over 6 000 foreigners work in government

In a recent article, Briefly News reported that the Department of Public Administration revealed that the government employs over 6 000 foreign nationals.

Minister of Public Administration Mzamo Buthelezi revealed the number of workers in a written response from a member of Parliament.

Source: Briefly News