About 30 former employees of now-defunct mobile operator Mfone protested Tuesday outside the office of the company’s liquidator, demanding pay promised to them and more than 1,000 other employees after the operator collapsed last year.
“We held a strike outside the Mfone office to demand the administrator pay us the remaining 30 percent of our severance pay,” said Saing Darin, a former Mfone driver.
Mr. Darin said he was paid 70 percent of his pay, or about $3,500, but still is owed $1,600. He said the company’s court-appointed administrator, Ouk Ry, has delayed the payment because of a “technical problem.”
About an hour into the protest, Mr. Ry allowed five of the former employees inside the building for a meeting and promised to pay them on June 16.
“We already solved the problem. The administrator promised to pay us on June 16,” said Noun Sam Ath, one of the five former employees who met with Mr. Ry.
Mr. Ry said $1 million has been prepared to pay the 1,092 workers their remaining 30 percent but declined to say what caused the delay.
After it went bankrupt, Mfone’s assets were sold for $10 million to Khmer Unified Network Communication Ltd. Mfone owes creditors more than $160 million.
