Liquor store owners designed mansion while company probed

Tuesday, 18 February 2020

Harjit Singh and his wife Shereen last year lodged plans with the Christchurch City Council to build one of the city's grandest and most expensive homes.

While Harjit and Shereen Singh's company was being investigated for failing to pay liquor store staff the minimum wage, the couple were designing a palatial multimillion-dollar mansion.

Stuff has obtained architectural drawings for the 1200-square-metre home over three floors, which, if built, will be one of Christchurch's grandest and most expensive.

Records show the property where the proposed mansion would be built is worth an estimated $1.45 million. (Composite image)

The documents, dated May last year, reveal plans for the eye watering mansion in Hills Rd, Mairehau, include six bedrooms with en suites, several living areas, an indoor swimming pool with a nearby bar, a gym, a sauna, a billiards room, an art studio, an underground wine cellar and basement nine-seat cinema, plus a six car garage and a tennis court.

The house – which has a floor area equivalent to more than 10 state homes – features secret doors, including one to a walk-in safe hidden behind a mirror, sound proofed rooms, including a prayer room, and a plinth for god and goddess statues.

**READ MORE:

Harjit Singh is a director and shareholder of Nekita Enterprises. Super Liquor Holdings cut ties with the company after it allegedly exploited staff.

* Super Liquor franchisee Nekita Enterprises 'exploited staff'

* 'Heinous' offending: Bottle store owners fined $200,000 for exploiting staff

Harjit and Shereen Singh plan to build a palatial 1200-square-metre mansion on this section in Mairehau, Christchurch.

* How the liquor store industry is riddled with worker exploitation**

The Christchurch City Council issued a building consent for the proposed mansion in June last year.

Records show the building site, a 1.3-hectare property that backs onto Mairehau High School, is worth an estimated $1.45 million. It's owned by the Singhs and two other individuals.

Construction is yet to begin.

An architect who reviewed the plans, which Stuff obtained from the council, said development of the property could cost as much as $9m.

Harjit Singh, a prominent member of the local Sikh community, wasn't taking calls on Tuesday.

At his current residential address – a more modest property on Bower Ave, New Brighton, worth an estimated $930,000 – a woman, believed to be his daughter, declined to comment.

A Labour Inspectorate investigation found Nekita Enterprises failed to pay several staff the minimum wage. The company's directors, Harjit and Shereen Singh, list this property in Bower Ave as their residential address.

A black Mercedes and a white Range Rover were parked in the drive.

Nekita Enterprises Ltd, a company controlled by the Singhs, owns 15 bottle stores in Canterbury.

On Tuesday, Stuff revealed Super Liquor Holdings terminated its franchise agreements with the company last week after a Labour Inspectorate investigation, sparked by a January 2019 complaint, found it:

Super Liquor Pages Rd is among 15 bottle stores owned by Nekita Enterprises.

- Failed to pay staff the minimum wage.

- Required employees to 'pay a premium' by paying the correct hourly rate and then forcing them to pay it back.

- Kept inaccurate wages and time and leave records. The poor record keeping meant that it was unable to show whether other minimum standards, for example holiday pay, had been met at all times.

The inspectorate has filed proceedings with the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) seeking 'penalties and arrears'.

The investigation, which looked at six years of the company's employment records, concluded in November.

It was hampered by poor record keeping, which made it difficult to establish the extent of any wrongdoing.

Labour Inspectorate southern regional manager Jeanie Borsboom said the inspectorate alleged 59 employees were affected by record keeping breaches, four staff were paid less than the minimum wage and owed a total of $21,300, and the company sought premiums from three employees.

It was up to the ERA to determine what, if any, penalties should be imposed, Borsboom said.

The council's head of regulatory compliance, Tracey Weston, said if the ERA found Nekita Enterprises had broken the law then 'this may be a suitability issue of the licensee and/or for the alcohol licence'.

Migrant Workers' Association's Anu Kaloti talks to Radio Tarana's Vandhna Bhan about migrant worker exploitation issues. (Video first published November 2019)

'This could result in possible enforcement proceedings before the Alcohol Licensing Regulatory Authority.'

Nekita Enterprises has previously come under scrutiny over its employment practices.

A similar complaint was made to the Labour Inspectorate in 2016, but the allegations were not proved after witnesses were unwilling to come forward.

Immigration New Zealand would not confirm whether it was investigating the company or the Singhs 'to protect the integrity of our compliance activity and to ensure the privacy of any individuals or companies is maintained during any investigative process'.

The Singhs own at least a dozen residential properties in Christchurch worth more than $6m.

They are the directors and joint shareholders of several other companies, including Samsas Enterprises, Gulati Investments (2013), Three Angels Holdings (2010) and 51 Pages Rd.

Migrant exploitation is a significant issue in New Zealand.

Last October, the Labour Inspectorate said it had taken prosecutions against 60 bottle store owners in the past two years, and had 15 more actions in the pipeline. Its national investigations manager, Stu Lumsden, estimated 40 per cent of all stores were breaching labour laws in some way.

Super Liquor has stripped several other franchisees of their affiliation after complaints of migrant exploitation.

Super Liquor Holdings chief executive chief executive Campbell McMahon said the company had 'zero tolerance for fundamental breaches of employment law'.

Nekita Enterprises' bottle stores would trade as Super Liquor stores until 'debranding is concluded', which would be no later than March 27, McMahon said in an email to shareholders last week.