Scientology bragged on new Africa drug rehab, now it’s accused of stiffing workers
At Scientology’s New Year’s event that was actually taped at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on December 14, one of the many things church leader David Miscavige boasted about was a new Narconon drug rehab in South Africa.
Narconon rehabs use a dangerous cold-turkey method that is based on Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s quack ideas about how drugs are processed by the body. Several patient deaths and a large number of lawsuits led to the network shrinking greatly in this country, from about 21 rehabs to only five today.
So Miscavige has focused on new facilities overseas, where there tends to be less oversight. And we didn’t even know that a new Narconon had been built in South Africa until the photos you see here were revealed in the slide show for the New Year’s event.
If you know how Narconon operates, you will find these images very familiar. “Students” pay high prices to go the facilities, which are pitched to be more like luxurious resorts, and they go through a risky regimen of long stretches in saunas combined with ludicrous amounts of vitamins, paired with Scientology exercises like shouting at ashtrays.
Scientology no doubt figured that it would have little of the kind of interference it’s run into in the U.S. by locating a Narconon in a place like South Africa on a former safari game reserve.
But today, the Daily Maverick, a Cape Town and Johannesburg independent newspaper has accused the rehab of not paying its local workers anything in recent weeks.
“We have not been paid in five weeks, but even before December, we went eight weeks without receiving our salaries. While we beg for peanuts, the people who run this facility are getting paid for the work that we do, but we get nothing,” whistle-blower Nomalady Nekhabambe, a medical liaison officer, told Daily Maverick.
The paper said that the rehab opened a year ago, but workers it talked to said things really didn’t get going until August.
Since then, all 29 employees have endured late or non-payment of salaries, with wages often delayed far beyond the contractual agreement of weekly payouts every Friday. Management claimed the reason for non-payment was that their salaries depended on the arrival of new clients.
If you know Scientology, you know how familiar that sounds.
The Daily Maverick said it talked to a source who claimed that since the rehab opened 31 students had paid R200,000 (about $11,000), with one VIP paying R500,000 (about $27,000), which would add up to about $357,000 in total, and so they didn’t understand why wages weren’t being paid.
The paper also said that workers were concerned that Narconon was flouting South African labor laws with how it had been garnishing insurance and other withholding from the wages they did pay, but the Daily Maverick has been unable to get a response from the country’s Department of Labor.
We have to say, it’s extremely unusual for Scientology to have this kind of headache, with current employees going public with allegations like this, and for a newspaper to challenge the organization so boldly. We have a lot of respect for the Daily Maverick for taking it on.
Scientology may have thought it was going to have an easier time with its methods by opening a “Continental Narconon” in South Africa, but it seems to have a real headache on its hands.
Bonus items from our tipsters
While all the Volunteer Ministers action is in Los Angeles, one of our tipsters wanted us to know that the VM van at the Cincinnati Ideal Org has seen better days.
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Miscavige’s cut comes off the top. This is what eats up the most money. It is basically impossible for any Scientology organization anywhere to be profitable when they are paying exorbitant mob fees to survive. The business model makes 0 sense.
This is when Mark Plummer would come in handy, but I’ll try to muddle through the explanation. Maybe Jeffrey Augustine knows more.
Ten percent goes straight to Scientology because they provide the “tech.” Then the International Landlord (Scientology) gets paid a monthly fee for use of the building. Then there’s the fee for the materials over and above the tech fee, which is for thin air.
Which means they have used up about half of the money that came in before they even look at things like inpatient food if they live onsite, utilities, etc. Because Scientology skims half of the money off the top for absolutely nothing, there’s no way any Scientology organization can afford to make money.
Given NarCONon's history in the US, I wonder if some local Clam had 'loaned' the SA NarCONon a lot of money and is getting repaid. On second thought, maybe a local Clam is not involved and the loaner is first in line to get paid back. Or maybe the 'administrators' are just fleecing the flock? Embezzlement is not to be discounted.
Let's say that some big time Clam 'loaned' the start up money. If that Clam is close enough to Miscavige, he could very easily require repayment quickly. Just to make the whole scam look financially sound.
Meanwhile, are the 'graduates' being recruited to do the grunt work? That never worked well at Arrowhead.
The Daily Maverick has done a great service to South Africa. Respect.