Date: December 6, 2022

To: KKTE’s CEO, Kazi Anis Ahmed

From: Employees

Subject: The Problem of Corruption and Employee Inefficiency in Teatulia, Bangladesh

As a team leader for more than 10 years at KKTE, I am writing on behalf of myself and a group of employees in Teatulia.

First, we would like to extend our gratitude for changing our lives one tea at a time. We, over 2,200 employees, are grateful to be given the opportunity to help contribute to the production of organic tea through sustainable methods that would benefit nature and our lives.

Although hiring individuals from Bangladesh’s poorest and least-educated region was a great strategy to enhance our lives, several of us still experience the pressure of corruption and lack of efficiency at our work.

Together, we want to share our concerns for our safety and lack of efficiency. We kindly ask you to enforce responsibilities to upper management so our feedback on our working conditions can be heard. As a team leader, I am noticing that employees on our operational level feel unmotivated, unsafe, and are considering leaving the company in order to advance their careers for better financial stability and safety.

The Teatulia district has been operated under a group of political thugs for several years, meaning robbery is a common case which puts us, employees in danger of unforeseeable events and potential hijacks of lands. One of the company’s plots of land was once attacked by 100 armed men who were from the political thugs. The attack injured nine KKTE employees severely. Our main concern is if KKTE can recover their plots the same day, they should also be able to provide extra security measures to protect innocent employees that work in the region and ensure employees safety, instead of only defending the lands for future damage.

Additionally, lands that are of no use for tea plantations have been erroneously purchased several times without prior approval due to upper-level employees' ignorance. We, lower-level employees were blamed for such errors. We kindly ask you to enforce responsibilities to the KKTE senior managers to go through the trials of approval and delegate tasks for us lower-level employees, to make ethical land transactions and decide which land will be successful for tea plantation. The lack of upper management support has led us to approve contracts that we did not have much knowledge about.

The continued ignorance of approving incorrect land purchases for tea plantations initially started when KKTE senior managers relied on us, lower-level employees to act ignorant on approving inappropriate contracts for tea plantations. Moreover, there is an increase in expenses due to hidden activities with suppliers where upper management was not aware of. This unethical practice is spreading amongst some of our employees and we want to bring this matter to your attention that some of our employees are adopting such habits at daily work.

We collectively have a suggestion that can help address these issues. We believe that in order to improve our efficiency, willingness to work, and maintain our presence, the on-going corrupt practices in Teatulia needs to be addressed and minimized. The reason we state that is because it violates the core values of concerned employees and can affect the culture of the company gradually if disregarded.

We as employees want to maintain an attitude of diligence. We kindly request you to implement the Key Performance Indicator system on upper-level employees as well, not just on lower-level employees. This strategy would measure the operational performance and determine how mistakes have been escalated from the initial process and how it has caused those shifts in behavior amongst lower-level employees on a timely basis.

Our sincere recommendation is to help establish a high level of diligence and inform you as the head CEO of the company that we as a team would like our feedback to be heard so that we are not blamed for our unexpected performance in the future. We appreciate your support and we believe that our concerns will certainly be addressed.

Sincerely,

Altaf Safi

On behalf of Employees at  KKTE