I think that most of us here already know what is happening in the BPO sector since a few weeks. Employees of one of the biggest BPO firms of the island came forward to claim their salaries, unpaid since a few months. With no concrete action taken by the management, a group of employees went into a strike hunger for several days.
J.S, the big boss of the office finally came out of his hole. A lot of false promises, putting blames on others followed his appearance. Coincidentally, they discovered other frauds in the office, stolen equipment. For those who still remember, J.S and his company were in the headlines several times in the near past :
- Millions of rupees were granted as a Stimulus package during the financial crisis.
- The SIC (State Investment Corporation) purchased the Infinity Tower to help the company to get some cash
- On top of that, J.S is the Special Advisor of the Prime Minister and critics around have been linking the privileges due to this relationship between the big boss of the BPO center and the PM.
But the fact is here, weeks after, a large majority of the employees are still unpaid while a few have been partially remunerated. Despite all these, he can peacefully drive his Aston Martin 😉
Anyone wants to add something else?
Image credit goes to lematinal.com
Yashvinblogs 
Quite an amazing story which has opened my eyes to the lack of instruments here to protect employees. I used to be an elected union representative on a company committee for a multi-national company back in Europe. Laws and work regulations were very specific for the protection of employees even in the case of closures. In the local story I can see that much is lacking here in the way of employee protection. There are many aspects to the Infinity BPO story and the truth is yet to come out. However, the actions of the CEO are really suspect. This CEO did a dirty trick on employees in France too. The same happened in France where employee going to work found the company closed and doors locked and the CEO had hopped it back to MRU. So we can imagine that the character of this guy is somewhat unscrupulous to say the least. Funny that, with that kind of track record, the government here tried to rescue the failing company by granting a stimulus package and obtaining other facilities. I understand the anger and anguish of the Infinity BPO employees in an environment where social justice is lacking and slow.
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I heard about the Infinity fiasco. On Wednesday or day before that, I saw many of them standing in front of the Ministry of Labour building. I’m afraid I’m not following the story closely but from what I gathered from others, it’s a dilemma that needs a miraculous intervention, no? One of my work colleagues did tell me about the boss and his famous car! 🙂 If it were me, I wouldn’t sell my car to pay my employees. It may quench some rattled employees but it’s not the solution. Injecting money in the business from the boss’ pockets can only prove to be a temporary reprieve. A massive and external financial over-haul is called for.
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J.S is no more the advisor of PM 🙂
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Businesses and especially bad businessmen have always come to Mauritius to eat a part of the “commercial” cake. The problem here is that our leaders have always thought that these would always be beneficial for the country but this is not always the case.
Many choices for BPO to Mauritius came from the fact that these companies have been trying to cut down costs. They have already thrown people out in their own countries. So why should they care for the low-cost ones?
Infinity is the first, how many will follow when the time comes?
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Why should the employees go hungry for what is owed to them? What they should do instead is sue the company. There are laws protecting employees in Mauritius.
Eddy.
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Just imagine how these employees are surviving! They are only asking for their salary. Why do they boast of big commission when the company cant even pay them? I think those employees havent got their salary since 2-3 months. How are they running their household for those who are parents n have kids who depend on them? Already everything is becoming expensive. It’s really disgusting for a boss not to pay his employees..shame shame!!
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For those who have had an insight of how BPO’s work, you will surely know how lucratrive this sector is provided you have the right contacts. The proof is that not only J.S owns an A.Martin and nearly 1,000,000rs worth watch on his wrist but apparently had a staggering 800,000rs per month + commission as salary. So how come a profitable callcenter of over 600 positions (back in 2006) go on bankruptcy? Back in 2008/2009, it came to light that the company had not paid rent of office space which accounted to 30-40millions. If a CEO can afford the salary of nearly 1million a month, do the maths how much profit the company was grinding out 😉 SO! how come the company didnt pay the rental fee for months?? Was it a deliberate act?? Some papers have mentioned J.S as being a “bad businessman” for the company’s current state of finance. Seriously?? How can a “bad businessman” of a company which started only in mid-2000s become the leader in callcenters? I wonder what it would have been like if he was a “good businessman” lol.
In early 2006-2007, the BPO sector had only few actors, nowadays, numerous smaller callcenters have entered the market so I would believe the business of Inf took some of the shock. Simple maths, clients with campaigns will go to cheaper callcenters to get their work done. Before starting in Mauritius, the Inf BPO seemingly operated in France and apparently was closed down because of “Bankruptcy” and consequently delocalised to Mauritius. Have they found another BPO paradise cheaper the Mauritius?? where telecoms fees and labour even cheaper?? We will probably never know.
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Sadening news, it appears that J.S has had to sell his X5 and Ducati!! 😉
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apelle ca etre un businessman, J.S ene bon businessman.
et pas bizin dire zot, li marche avec pouvoir. rachete so tower, stimilus pakage.
@din3sh so moto et loto pas lor nom company Infinity, li ena encore ene tas les autres company. ene company faire LOSS, pena problem. li ferme li, la banque saizi so ban asset, bank account et point final. J.S pu sorti clean la dans. c’est travailleur et la banque ki grand perdant.
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Infinity is a case of mis-management..Its hapens when you have only one person as the Big Boss..
They paid incredible amounts of money to some employees,totally outrated..
Being in the IT industry i know a little bit about some salary scales on the market,but there it was like…
People were being paid like rs 10000 more than the normal salary scale..
Anyways,JS cant be touched..he has every backing you can think of..
i just hope he pays all the employees their salaries..
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This is not a case of mismanagement but a case of massive fraud and there are several people involved. The employees are the victims of an unscrupulous management. It just takes a reputable audit company to sift through the finances and paperwork and you come up with the illegal methods used.
See latest report on this link.
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The employment laws here are weak and the system of employee contract protection seems non-existent. There is another case of non-respect of employment contracts for Call Centre employees. How is it that employees need to file a complaint to the police before action is taken? Management acts above the law and do not respect employee contract clauses. It is time that the government sorted out the employment and work regulation laws here.
A new case on this link
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Always knew the Cyber-Island project consisting mainly of seated marsan anbilan [call centers] and bobok [editing] work , was the SADDEST JOKE made in this country .
Infinity is quite big compared to other call centers and has a higher profile so they make the headlines . But I know a lot of young people who worked for some at different call centers where after a few months they were no longer paid , they went to work for other call centers where again after some months they were no longer paid . Being young with no family responsibilities they just moved along and looked elsewhere when they got fed up with this system . And so this practice has thrived unnoticed in our No.1 in the world Cyber paradise .
It’s not over . Next they’re planning their MOST DANGEROUS JOKE : the City-Island . To make one big city of Mauritius .
Singapore – the model for this project – has to import water from Malaysia [1 km away] to support this over urbanization . The nearest plentiful source of water for us is the Zambezia River in Mozambique [2300 km away with Madagascar in the way] . Who will build the No.1 in the world super-water-pipe to bring water from Zambezia to Mauritius .
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Heh, we’ve come up with a two-word joke in our management class: whenever you need to give an example of a leader / manager who speaks more than he can actually deliver (actually in any module, just name it: accouting, human resources, marketing, ethics, economics, business law, operations management, etc), just say: “Jean Suzanne” and the whole class bursts into laughter. Even the lecturers can’t help it…
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Jean Suzanne is a sick joke . The workers at Infinity don’t see him as amusing .
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Match Jean Suzanne v/s Jérôme Appavoo lor radio-sousou entre 16:50 ek 18:00 zordi… will post the link later…
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As the investigation progresses the audit company has brought to light the evidence of illegal finance transactions. Huge sums have been siphoned from accounts and transferred to personal accounts in Luxembourg. Some of the people responsible left MRU for Tunisia when the audit began and in anticipation of the fraud being found. One of the accused claimed that an Aston Martin and three motorcycles, including a Ducatti, which Mr Suzanne bought were being paid in installments by the company. So we can conclude that they did not care much about employees and their families. I hope that the law will come down hard on these people and clean up the negative image of the BPO sector.
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In France, they call this (“an Aston Martin and three motorcycles, including a Ducatti, which Mr Suzanne bought were being paid in installments by the company.”) “abus de biens sociaux”, which entails heavy fines and imprisonment terms. I can now safely bet that nothing will happen to these two embezzlers.
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On Thursday the liquidator of Infinity announced that he was going to reclaim back payments made to three companies Datamatics , Mauritius Telecom and Barclays Leasing by Infinity . The Insolvency Act allows him to do so , he says .
Now, what exactly is he claiming back ? Is it overpayment ? I don’t know what precise business Datamatics or Barclays Leasing would have with Infinity , but MT would surely have been supplying Internet connection . Comparing what I paid MT (Orange, to be precise) for the last 2 years with what Infinity paid for connecting all its employees , I would say they got it rather cheap . It can’t be overpayment .
So responsibility for Infinity’s faults are being transferred to third parties . That’s unfair and, I think, illegal according to other Mauritian laws . To make someone answerable for the acts was illegal in the repealed Labour Act of 1975 but the principle of non-transferability of responsibiliy must be present in other Acts of Law .
Even though I sympathize with those employees of Infinity , I think it’s unfair , illegitimate and probably illegal to claim back what has been paid for goods or services that have been duly provided .
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Just noticed an error. In the 3rd paragraph read: To make someone answerable for the acts of another………..
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Correction :In the comment I made just above read Datacall Ltd instead of Datamatics .
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