Choppies Supermarket Fires 583 Employees Without Ksh 26.8 Million Pay

Choppies Supermarket fired 583 employees in two months citing a tough and competitive retail environment in Kenya.

The Botswanan based supermarket chain has been struggling to survive in the Kenyan market but its efforts have proven futile, forcing the retailer to shut down most of its stores.

Choppies had earlier announced to exit the Kenyan market and sell all its assets due to the tough retail environment where it declared 583 of its employees redundant and closed more than half of its 15 stores in Kenya.

In just a period of two months, Choppies had sent the 583 employees home as 97 were fired in the month of October and the other 486 were sent packing in November 2019.

The fired employees represented about 72 percent of the total number of Choppies employees which was 799, proving how much the retailer was struggling to survive in the Kenyan market.

However, Kenya Union of Commercial Food and Allied Workers took Choppies to court claiming that the retailer is likely to exit the Kenyan market without settling the dues it owes its fired employees.

Court documents filed by the Kenya Union of Commercial Food and Allied Workers revealed that Choppies owes the redundant employees a total of 26.8 million shillings in dues.

“Pending hearing and determination of this matter, this court does and hereby order the respondents herein to pay redundancy benefits to 543 employees amounting to Sh26.8 million owing to employees declared redundant in a joint interest account or in court to be accessed by the redundant employees should they be successful in this suit,” the court documents read.

Kenya Union of Commercial Food and Allied Workers asked the court to bar all the Choppies directors from leaving the country until the end of the court proceedings.

Meanwhile, plans to rescue Choppies from drowning are underway as ETG offered the supplier 400 million shillings of its shareholder’s loans to help the retailer settle its supplier debts.

If the loans are not settled, the local shareholders have an alternative option where they guaranteed 250 million shillings overdraft from I&M Bank Limited that will allow them to acquire additional stakes from Choppies’ Kenyan unit.

READ: Tuskys Supermarket Disputes Claims Of Mass Layoffs