Exploited Black owned companies by a white company

I am a black female small business sub-contractor who is sub-contracted to Sukumani Telecommunications from July 2017 to date. I have done many projects, have proven myself as more than capable, and have executed all the projects successfully. I currently employ nine people who are very dependent on the salaries I pay them to support their families.

For the past three months Sukumani Telecommunications has not paid me which in turn resulted in me not paying my employees. I have had meetings with the senior management of Sukumani and has sent them (Theunis van Staden, Bongani Matlala and Philip Treadoux) numerous emails and to date they (Sukumani) has blatantly ignored my plea, hence my communication to your office to intervene and assist us. I am of the opinion that Sukumani Telecommunications is exploiting many black sub-contractors and having said that I know of white sub-contractors that has confirmed they were paid. The Sukumani management fail to return or take my telephone calls and ignore all my email correspondence to them. In addition to ourselves, there are several other sub-contractors who has not being paid which has resulted in them stop working and some have closed their businesses.

Government has encouraged South African’s to establish small businesses thus contributing to the economy and to job creation which we have done but if contractors like Sukumani exploit us, please tell me Sir how are we supposed to continue running our small businesses. We as South Africans have a wealth of s****s and talent as we as Ruthmic has proven it to Sukumani but they fail to pay us for our services.

As you are aware, 51-54% of GDP comes from smme’s like us and if companies like Sukumani Telecommunications continue in this regard, we will have no option but to close down and the ripple effect of unemployment to our fellow people and non-contribution to the country’s growth.

Sukumani’s management tells us that Telkom has not paid them hence the reason for them not paying us.

The manner in which Sukumani has treated us has forced us to escalate the matter to you to intervene and assist not only us but also other black sub-contractors of Sukumani. They are also pushing us to appeal to the Dept. of Labour or the media to assist us as well should they continue to exploit us and not pay us all outstanding monies due.