Court orders Yalelo to pay former employee Shs176Million

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Industrial Division of the High Court has ordered, Yalelo Uganda Limited, an aquaculture company to pay its former commercial director, Martin Kasasira at least Shillings 176 million for unlawful and unfair dismissal.

In a decision by Judge Anthony Wabwire Musana, with a panel comprising; Jimmy Musimbi, Emmanuel Bigirmana, and Can Amos Lapenga, the court held that Kasasira was dismissed from his job without a fair hearing.

According to the record, Kasasira got a job with Yalelo in June 2020 and was dismissed in May 2022 on the grounds of underperformance and gross misconduct among others. However, he alleges that before his dismissal the Chief Executive Officer of Yalelo Piers Mudd, wrote to him an email complaining about his performance and he asked that they meet to talk about the matter.

However, before even the scheduled meeting could take place, he received a letter dismissing him from his job. Dissatisfied with the decision, Kasasira lodged a petition in the Kampala Labour office and subsequently, to the industrial court. In its decision, the court indeed found that Kasasira had been unfairly dismissed.

“The email cannot, by any stretch of legal ingenuity and juristic interpretation, be a notification of a disciplinary hearing… There was no indication in this email that the Respondent was considering dismissal on any grounds, including the grave allegations of sexual harassment … Therefore, we must conclude that no hearing was held…It is our finding that the email correspondence did not amount to a fair hearing. While the respondent may have had, in its view, justifiable cause to summarily sever its contract with the claimant on the grounds of poor performance… The respondent was statutorily required to subject the claimant to a hearing, and despite the respondent’s strenuous arguments, the email did not suffice as a fair hearing, in our view. And these contraventions are compounded by the respondent’s breach of its own human resources manual,” the court ruled.

It added that in the case of allegations against Kasasira, the company had to lodge a formal investigation and share a copy of its findings with him. “It has been held that an employer failing to follow its internal procedure is an unfair labour practice. After an objective evaluation of the evidence before us and having considered the parties’ respective submissions and the law, we must conclude that the claimant’s dismissal from employment by the respondent was procedurally and substantively unfair. It would, therefore, be unlawful,” the court held.

It, therefore, ordered that Yalelo issue Kasasira a certificate of service within 15 days and also compensate him Shillings 12,096,774 for his outstanding leave payment, Shillings 37,545,000 for one month of pay, Shillings 70,084,300 as severance pay and Shillings 56,317,500 for in general damages. All these moneys attract a 14 % interest from the time the order was made until full payment.