Leftover meat lands woman in soup

A WOMAN employed by Fedics Food Services Namibia spent three days in police custody after she was arrested for allegedly stealing pieces of cooked meat in June this year.

Fedics Food Services Namibia, a company run by Hosea Alweendo, was contracted by the health ministry to supply food at the Katutura Intermediate Hospital, Windhoek Central Hospital and the Mental Ward.

Martha Siwogedi told on Tuesday that she paid N$600 bail to be released from the Windhoek Central Police Station, where she was held between 25 and 27 June.

Siwogedi, who worked for seven years at the company as a catering manager, was arrested on 25 June at 12h30 by a security officer and project manager, Hilda Albino, after she was allegedly found with a kilogramme of cooked meat, 334 grammes of cheese and a roll of toilet paper.

Albino declined to comment on the matter.

Siwogedi said on that particular day, there were meat leftovers, which she was directed by a chef to share with supervisors.

She, however, did not reveal the name of the chef who gave her the meat.

“I divided it into four take-away packs with four pieces of meat in each pack,” she said, adding that the three supervisors declined to take their packages, and instead gave them all to her to take home.

“The reason I took it is because everyone takes leftover food home. The managers working in the office do not take, but the managers in the kitchen take the food, and everyone knows this,” she explained.

According to Siwogedi, she was searched upon leaving the work premises at around 12h00 that day and was found with the food items, leading to her arrest.

A memorandum seen by shows that all staff were told that no leftover food – be it from the kitchen, wards or ward kitchen, should be taken, as all food was considered company property.

The memo further advised that meals should be consumed in the workplace, and that things such as tissues, serviettes or toilet paper should not be removed from company premises.

Despite this, Siwogedi claimed that other people still took food from the premises.

She noted that the managers meted out unnecessarily harsh treatment against workers for minor offences, as some people were apparently fired earlier for consuming leftover biscuits and milk, and one for eating leftover food while washing dishes.

Siwogedi was served with a suspension letter on 1 July 2019, and appeared before a hearing, where she was found guilty of breaking company rules, leading to her dismissal.

Alweendo told that Siwogedi was indeed dismissed from the company but that the circumstances surrounding her dismissal is an internal company matter.

On the issue of serving leftover food to the patients, he denied it “emphatically”, saying it is an unsubstantiated allegation.

“Fedics emphatically denies the unsubstantiated allegation that we serve leftover food to any party under our contractual agreement. We consider this claim to be inflammatory, unfounded, and legally irresponsible,” charged Alweendo.