Across the board restructuring at Ekango Salt Refiners

Ekango Salt Refiners, the producer and exporter of top-grade Namibian table salt in Walvis Bay, confirmed yesterday a restructuring of its work force, in lieu of expectations to raise current production output of 4 500 tons of table salt per month to 6 000 tons per month.
Additionally, Ekango Salt Refiners through its holdings company, CAH Holdings, has recently acquired the well-known, top-grade South African table salt trade mark Cerebos. The intended restruc-turing also has much to do with accommoda- ting the Cerebos trade mark at the Ekango production facility at Walvis Bay Salt Refiners. Ekango Salt Refiners is a subsidiary of Walvis Bay Salt Holdings which is in turn owned by Chlor & Alkali Holdings (CAH) which in actual fact in turn acquired the Cerebos trade mark.
Upon inquiries yester-day afternoon, the Ma-naging Director of Walvis Bay Salt Hold-ings, Mr André Sny-man, set the record straight over the finan-cial viability of Ekango Salt Refiners.
Snyman rejected all rumours that the re-structuring is to coun-ter a financial loss of tens of millions of Namibia Dollar for this financial year. He also confirmed Ekango Salt Refiners is financially sound, but in order to raise productivity and to increase production output,  and to bring the Cerebos trade mark online, a reorganisation of the staffing of the plant has become a necessity.
Snyman explained the production at the Ekango plant will cease next week, for a 2 week period only, in order to make modifications to the existing production and packing processes of Ekango to accommodate the well – known superior Cerebos quality.
Simultaneously the proposed restructuring will ensure that the plant is efficiently staffed to be able to up production output and to accommodate the additional technical specifications brought about as a result of the Cerebos brand.
Currently only the Ekango Salt trade mark is packed at the plant, whilst top-grade bulk table salt is also exported for re-packaging by other salt labels.
“Ekango is financially sound. I also want to make it abundantly clear, that despite the restructuring, the intention is not to have any loss of human capital [retrenchments]. In fact, we expect that persons will be re-organised into suitable positions”, explained Snyman.
Snyman admitted some people may be affected by the restructuring in terms of reduced salaries in line with the local labour market, but said the Company has committed itself to actively consult its employees on this matter, and will endeavour to investigate and consider all possible alternatives. The company will however respect the decision of any person not in agreement with his or her new position or remunerative package to opt for a separation package.