'Invented' records behind downfall

• Published date: 02 March 2024
• Author: Felicity Dear and Rob Kidd
• Publication title: Otago Daily Times: Web Edition Articles (New Zealand)

Felicity Dear and Rob Kidd report on how he took advantage of his countrymen who pursued that same dream

* Dream immigration tale tarnished

A Southland imam's reputation has been shattered after an investigation showed he ripped off his dairy-farm workers and doctored paperwork.

The Employment Relations Authority (ERA) ordered Reza Abdul-Jabbar to pay $52,056 to the staff involved, but the farm owner claims he was the real victim.

Abdul-Jabbar is the imam of the Southland Muslim Association's mosque and, as the only Muslim dairy-farm owner in the country, has been portrayed as a trail blazer and pillar of the community.

But, behind the scenes, he had been under-paying his Indonesian employees.

A damning ERA decision revealed his company, Rural Practice Ltd (RPL), kept no wage or time records for six workers, despite boasting a "state-of-the-art" operation.

And it could get worse for Abdul-Jabbar.

The Labour Inspectorate sought penalties of up to $360,000 and a final decision by the authority is expected in the coming months.

When interviewed by the Otago Daily Times, Abdul-Jabbar remained defiant.

He claimed his staff had simply been "ganging up" on him and had manipulated the system.

He said there was an anonymous "mastermind" behind the manipulation, who allegedly had fallen out with several other dairy farmers.

"We were just running business as usual and had a difficult moment in our lives and they took advantage of that and tried to gain from us," he said.

"It's a sad case where people are conniving, trying to manipulate the system and being malicious in order to gain something."

The ERA, however, found the situation to be very much to the contrary.

The case revolved around Agus Sutaji, Falentino Sembiring and Tedi Pribadi, whose employment spanned December 2017 to February 2022.

A labour inspector investigated the company following a complaint from Mr Sutaji in 2020 and interviewed the staff as well as Abdul-Jabbar...