Menlyn Babel’s problems are not ours, says Ocean Basket 

Ocean Basket (OB) says the Labour Department is wrong about allegations that it owed staff hundreds of thousands of rands, or employed illegal foreigners. 

OB’s compliance with immigration laws was independently confirmed by Home Affairs, which accompanied Labour on the raids at Menlyn shopping mall on Sunday night. The department says it knows nothing about arrests of OB staff, or that it employed illegal workers.

The restaurant chain’s CEO, Grace Harding, was indignant on Wednesday after the Labour Department issued a statement in which it accused both OB and Babel in Menlyn, Pretoria, of labour law and Immigration Act violations. 

The Department of Home Affairs has confirmed there were no illegal foreigners employed by Menlyn OB — yet the statement by the Labour Department, which was involved in the Sunday raid alongside the Hawks and the Bargaining Council, suggested that OB was also found in breach of immigration law.

On Monday, the Minister of Employment and Labour, Nomakhosazana Meth, issued a statement commending the Labour inspection team that was accompanied by immigration officials and other departments.

She said four people were arrested: “Two undocumented foreign nationals working at Babel, including their employer, as well as one undocumented foreign national working for Mr Delivery collecting a meal at Ocean Basket.”

As such, “the employers (i.e. OB and Babel) were found non-compliant with the provisions of the Employment Services Act read with the Immigration Act administered by the Department of Home Affairs, and, as a result, two employees at Babel were apprehended, including the owner and the Mr. Delivery worker who was collecting food at Ocean Basket”.

However, Home Affairs spokesperson Duwayne Esau told Daily Maverick: “Home Affairs Immigration has only referred to two employees of Babel and a manager of the same business. No other person or business was mentioned by Home Affairs. Our immigration officials were conducting their duties, as empowered by the law.”

Pressed on the issue, Labour’s head of communications, Teboho Thejane, conceded that the statement was misleading and that OB was not found to have employed foreigners: only the Mr D driver, an independent contractor, was arrested on site. 

The raid was conducted after a TikTok video, in which a former waitress exposed Babel, a popular club and restaurant, for forcing staff to buy their own uniforms, bottle openers and other equipment, pay breakage fees, and work excessively long hours.

By Wednesday, the video, by digital creator Mihlali Nobavu (mollybave), had over 210,000 views on TikTok and more than 4.4 million views on X.

The Labour Department’s statement also accused the employers (both Babel and Ocean Basket) of not complying with the provisions of the National Minimum Wage Act. 

“Babel Restaurant failed… to compensate the employees in accordance with the prescribed minimum wage rate for 2024, which is R27,58 per hour. The amount the employer owes the employees due to underpayment is estimated at… (R271,984) for cleaners, and … (R295,547) for waiters and waitresses.”

Babel’s waiters were found to have been paid only on commission and tips, with some paid as little as R150 per shift, at a maximum of R300 per week. They also worked 12 and 15-hour shifts in contravention of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act.

OB, it claimed, also only paid waitresses tips and commissions. “The amount the employer owes the employees is (R813,969).”

Both were also accused of failing to comply with the Unemployment Insurance, Compensation of Occupational Injuries and Diseases, and Occupational Health and Safety acts.

Harding said the inspectors never found immigration act violations, but only a few “minor” health and safety issues, and that she is yet to see any evidence of over R800,000 in wages owed to staff. 

She told Daily Maverick that inspections were normal in the restaurant industry and generally conducted professionally and respectfully. 

“I don’t like the fact that they issued a press release claiming we were also employing illegal foreigners and that we owe staff R813,000, which is a fantastical figure. I don’t know where they got that from… they didn’t leave any paperwork behind to support that claim.”

Thejane, however, insisted that the inspector had given OB management various citations, which were signed for.

On Tuesday, Harding issued a statement explaining that OB head office had spent the past 24 hours investigating the Menlyn OB using an independent labour lawyer, internal auditors, as well as an accounting firm, and after hours of thorough scrutiny, to “inspect the payroll and speed up the completion of the department’s routine audit”. 

Harding said this is what they found: 

• There are no illegal foreigners currently employed at Ocean Basket Menlyn and this has been confirmed by the Department of Home Affairs who visited on Sunday night.


• All staff receive their monthly wages, tips and commission as per their employment contracts. 


• No money is currently owed to any staff members. 


• Staff have voluntarily supplied affidavits to this effect. 


• Our practices comply with SA labour legislation. 


• Absolutely no contact has been made or documentation supplied to us by the Department of Labour as evidence of where they got the figures they released to media or to ask for our co-operation in resolving this. 


• We have been referred among personnel at the department but no one has answered any questions or agreed to meet or supply the evidence supporting these figures.