…Rural Practice Ltd has been ordered to pay $10,000 and owner Reza Abdul-Jabbar $5000 after the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) made its determination earlier this month.

The penalties come on top of $215,000 in fines imposed last year when the ERA found the company and its owner had breached minimum employment standards.

The obstruction occurred when Abdul-Jabbar claimed one of the workers involved in the case owed $5000 in recruitment costs, paid to a recruitment agent, and provided a photograph of the receipt as evidence.

When asked for the original document, he supplied a different receipt, prompting the ERA to launch an own-motion inquiry into whether it had been obstructed.

The worker involved denied he had hired a recruitment agent and said he had not seen the invoice in question until the Labour Inspectorate showed it to him.

Abdul-Jabbar was an Invercargill imam and served as a religious adviser and mentor for at least one of the three Indonesian workers he was found to have exploited.

The company and owner have paid more than $116,000 in wage arrears to the three workers, according to the Labour Inspectorate…