By Zweli Martin Dlamini

MANZINI:Moses Motsa,a multi-billionaire and owner of the now defunct Carson Motors,avoided questions when this journalist questioned him regarding his alleged disappearance, after retrenching workers.

The multi-billionaire businessman told this Swaziland News on Tuesday that he was in Durban and as a result, was struggling to hear what this journalist was talking about,perhaps,due to network challenges.

But surprisingly,the network was stable and it ‘started’ developing challenges after this journalist questioned the billionaire when will he pay the retrenched employees their terminal benefits.

“I am in Durban and I can’t hear you, let’s talk tomorrow,” said the billionaire.

When this publication visited the company premises at Moneni on Tuesday, it was discovered that Mercedes Benz has taken-over and as a result, the company premises were re-branded.

“It’s true that Carson Motors has closed, the challenge is that the owner leased the premises to a new franchise and the employees were retrenched.It would have been better if the new owner bought Carson Motors and continued operations with the employees but, that didn’t happen,”said an insider very close to the billionaire.

Reached for comments,Wander Mkhonza, the Secretary General of the Amalgamated Trade Union of Swaziland(ATUSWA) said Motsa must pay the workers their terminal benefits.

“We strongly believe that Motsa took a business decision,to close the company at Moneni Carson Motors.When an employer takes a decision to shutdown a company, he must pay the workers their benefits. We are saying it’s a business decision because if the company was struggling, he was going to apply for liquidation but,that didn’t happen.Even if he was to apply for liquidation,it was going to be a challenge for him because he owns many businesses.Therefore, when an employer, who owns various businesses apply for liquidation, we normally approach the courts for a corporate value.This is normally done to ascertain,if he was not transferring the money generated at ‘Carson’ to some of his businesses.Some company owners normally transfer the money to other businesses and end-up collapsing that particular company, Motsa must pay the employees their monies,” said the ATUSWA Secretary General.