By Grace Q. Bryant
Some aggrieved employees of the Palm Spring Resort, a local Hotel in Congo Town, began a sit-in protest at the grounds of the Temple of Justice against the management of the resort in demand of their salaries owed them. Najib Kamand the Manager of Palm Spring Resort is currently facing trial at the Civil Law Court in Monrovia for allegedly duping a Chinese national believed to be the Chief Executive Officer of Golden Gate Hotel in ELWA along with his business partner Ding Shu Jun ally Nancy over 1.5 million United States dollars.
According to information, Kamand is indebted to some of the employees for several months amounting to over thirty (30) thousand United States dollars.
Speaking with Judicial Reporters during their protest on Wednesday, February 3, 2021, the group threatened to continue their protest until they get redress on grounds that the situation has caused their children to be thrown out of school.
“Our being here today is to demand our just benefits and salaries from Mr. Kamand and to call the attention of the public to what is happening at Palm Spring,” Yatta Kontoe, Procurement Officer stated.
Kontoe who have worked with the Hotel for over three years explained that they are being maltreated as people who do not have a Government because they are working for a company that does not care about their welfare with impunity, noting, “Some of us do not have our own houses we are paying rent and we need to take care of our needs.”
She further indicated that they have engaged the government through their leaders but to date, they are yet to get redress.
The president of the aggrieved workers of Palm Spring Resort claimed that they have been to the Ministry of Labor on several occasions relative to salaries owed them, but the Ministry had not shown any interest in their plight.
Anthony Mulbah mentioned that their presence at the Temple of Justice is to petition the judiciary to intervene in the matter as it is long overdue.
Mulbah who had been in the employ of Palm Spring for ten years said their boss Kamand had been in the constant habit of allegedly bribing people at the Labor Ministry whenever they complain of this bad labor practice meted against them by their boss.
At the same time, Delma Malasmas, a Filipino employed with the Hotel lamented that her action to have joined the protest was due to the fact that her boss Kamand owes her and does not want to pay, a situation which had caused her not to send money home to her family for over two years.
“I make six hundred and he stopped paying me from 2019. I have engaged him on this several times and every time he will promise to pay, but when time comes he wouldn’t which is sad,” Malasmas lamented. She continued, “This is not about foreign brother, but people’s labor because we have our families and other needs to take care of and we cannot continue in this manner.”