Mozambique expels SA workers

Mozambique has expelled 115 foreign workers employed illegally and has fined their South African employer over R9 million, the Mozambican labour ministry said.

"The Labour ministry has just expelled, with immediate effect, 115 foreign workers, mostly of South African and Filipino nationality, who were brought here illegally by the South African company Kentz-Engineers & Constructors," the ministry said in the statement on Thursday.

The company is a sub-contractor of Brazilian mining giant Vale Mocambique, at the company's coal concessions in Moatize in the northwest of the country.

Department inspectors found workers at the constructor denied its workers holidays or weekends and proper protective clothing. It also had not registered its Mozambican workers for social security.

Kentz-Engineers was fined close to 34 million meticals (R9.2 million) and granted 30 days to fix irregularities.

The company has 1073 Mozambican and 227 foreign workers, according to the labour ministry.

Mining companies have often resorted to South African skilled workers and contractors for specialised tasks, asserting that Mozambicans do not have the necessary training to do the jobs.

Mozambican authorities however claim that it is not always necessary to employ foreigners.

In October the department expelled 51 illegal foreign workers of Irish miner Kenmare's heavy sands project in Moma in northern Mozambique.

Kenmare later said the workers had been employees of a contractor and not the company itself. Their nationalities were not divulged.

Earlier in November the mayor of Nacala in northern Mozambique said 400 foreign workers were needed to build a coal terminal at the city's port because the city did not have the local skills.