I was an ex-employee of Logikal Consulting. This is to bring to your kind notice about the illegal business practice, cheating with employees, bringing potential employees from India on fake documents and visas of Logikal Consulting, a South African company run and owned by Mr. Gerald Naidoo and HassenPopet. I have been in depression for months after a bad incident that took place in South Africa directly impacting my career and family life causing strife and financial crunches. I was working with Synopsys in India and was looking for an overseas opportunity.
After few months of hunt, I was approached by Logikal Consulting with an attractive salary package and better life prospects in South Africa. Logikal Consulting which is based out of South Africa with an Indian office run from home in Pune (Maharashtra, India) mainly focuses and attracts IT professionals working in Indian MNC’s by making great attractive offers and then sell to client in south Africa. Following are the attractive offers promised by Logikal:
Fully furnished Family Accommodation without any deductions.
Family VISA within a Month sponsored by Company
350, 000 Rands per Annam without deductions
Car to be shared between two candidates (for official and personal use)
Travel Back with Family every one year (sponsored by company)
Permanent Roles at Logikal Consulting
Minimum 2 years contract 8. Work Permit to carry out the Business Activities Seeing the above I too was lured by them, along with many other Indians who already had joined Logikal. In June 2011, I was interviewed by Logikal and Client Standard bank (Johannesburg) in South Africa. I was through the interview and then I was offered a 350, 000 Rands/Annum.
They released my offer letter within a week time. No sooner I received offer they insisted me to sign it asap. I did not want to lose out such opportunity so I signed the contract and after receiving a signed copy they requested me to submit documents for business visa. Soon my Business Visa was available in a week and I was asked to travel immediately. I travelled a day after with my tickets to Johannesburg and they received me from airport took me to a place where I was to stay. I was provided an accommodation in Sandton Rivonia Road. They got me to a flat which had two rooms and one study room.
I was asked to stay in Study room which was dirty hovel with only bad poor lighting and dampened walls. When I called them that this is not what you promised they said please cooperate for 2-3 days and we will change your place. But this thing never happened I was made to stay in that compact study room for three months where you can just stand or lay on bed. The first day at office brought to my surprise was when they asked me to physically work on the software developments instead of consulting. According to laws of Land one can only provide consulting on business visa and cannot work for payments, but I had no choice as I had quit my job and that was only option for me so I continued like other Indians on business visa were doing. After a month as they promised that they will get my family.
Please note that this was my first time in South Africa and I had no understanding of visas in this country. Hence what ever they suggested was taken by me in good faith. I requested them to process Visa for my wife and a kid. I wrote them several emails and phoned them but all those requests fell on their deaf ears. For another month they did not hear my request and finally one day I went in directly to speak to acting Group CTO with my request. He said we are trying our best to get the things done and asked me to wait for a week. After a week I was approached by their Director Lavesh Patil in Logikal Pune (Maharashtra) asking me to submit the passport of my wife and kid. I was glad to hear the news so I collected all my documents and asked my wife to resign and be ready to get to charismatic life of South Africa.
After receiving the documents such as passport logikal administration held it for month (Holding anyone passport is illegal by law of any land) and never replied to my emails nor did answer any phone call. Like this three months passed and nothing happened as promised. Then I spoke to other employees and came to know that is how Logikal practices and it’s the story of each and every individual. Infact the other employees did told me that their were two employees of Logikal Emp1 and Emp2 Sharma. Both were working at ABSA on Filenet. They left few months back due to unbearable harassment by Logikal Management i.e. Lavesh, Mahesh Chauhan-CEO and Gerald Naidoo. Emp1 wife couldn’t join him as he was on FAKE WORK PERMIT. He was deported from O R TAMBO Airport when caught with fake visa managed by Logikal on Fake Invite letter of an Indian company which had broke all relationship with Logikal in August 2010 after finding out that Logikal is a fake organization.
Another person Nikhil, Mani who use to work for ABSA and now Nikhil works at Discovery also had the FAKE WORK PERMIT managed by Logikal. Both Emp1 and Emp2 are now back in India after the South African Nightmare. IF you don’t believe me investigate it and talk to these first two employees of Logikal. Coming Back to my family visa. Putting lot of efforts with the management brought up a situation where they were compelled to process visa and then finally they started VISA processing. Three Weeks after I had served 3 Months with them my wife and Kid got their visa to travel. Another shock was when I came to know that they had processed Business VISA for my wife as she was not employed with them, total illegal mess based on FAKE DOCUMENTS.
I brought my wife as they said it ok and nothing will go wrong. My wife and kid joined me and then my accommodation was changed to another scary house full of ugly and scary tribal wall paints where my son got scared as he entered. My son who is 3 years was always in fear and dreamt ghosts all day. He fell ill several times as he was scared all the time. I requested the management to change the accommodation but as usual it fell to their deaf ears. Aha...The Car which we never got to drove in past 3 Months was provided on arrival of family and I was made cab driver to pick and drop other logical employees to their client location as in when. Sometimes I had to pick them late hours in the evening or had to get ready early morning to drop them to their client locations.
When I objected to this they threatened to terminate me. Finally after serving them for six months time arrived on 13th November 2011 when their contract with the client got over and to my surprise one morning when I reached office they terminated me without prior notice. I then approached management to know the reason why they have terminated me and I was answered "we will discuss". I kept asking them whole day and ran after them but everybody was busy and did not hear me. The next day I was called by the Delivery Manager Mr. Kundan to leave the accommodation and deposit car keys. I requested them for a reason and settlement as per the contract but they did not hear any of my requests.
I also requested to let me stay for few days so that I can arrange for tickets back to India but they forced me to leave the house, then I resorted to Hotel in Sandton and arranged for tickets myself to get back to India.