Court Orders TSC to Reinstate & Compensate Sacked Senior Manager for Unlawful Dismissal
The Employment and Labour Relations court has ordered the immediate reinstatement of Rose Mwende Mustiya, the Senior Human Resource Manager of the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), who was sacked in May 2022.
Mwende had taken legal action, claiming that her dismissal was a violation of her rights and freedoms, alleging that she was fired over abuse of office regarding teachers’ promotion payrolls.
Justice Byram Ongaya, who issued the ruling, directed TSC to reinstate Mwende to her position as Senior Human Resource Manager without any loss of salary, benefits, or work perks.
The judge also ordered that Mwende be paid in full for special damages arising from outstanding emoluments and benefits that she would have earned since the time of her dismissal.
According to an internal audit conducted in October 2021, 22 teachers were verified to have been irregularly promoted in the payroll without any documentary evidence of approval in their personal files.
The audit revealed that staff at the commission took advantage of the high number of teachers approved for promotion to introduce additional promotions into the payroll system irregularly.
Following the audit, TSC constituted an investigations committee whose report recommended disciplinary action against five employees, including Mwende, for violating the commission overpayment policy.
Mwende was interdicted on December 16, 2021, for breach of the Human Resource manual for secretariat staff, 2018.
She responded by stating that the errors in payrolls were caused by work pressure to clear pending files that piled up during the COVID-19 pandemic.
She also stated that there was no professional negligence on her part and that she had requested the authority to reverse the cases to stop further overpayment after being informed of the error by the investigating TSC panel on October 19, 2021.
However, a TSC disciplinary panel found her culpable of the allegations and dismissed her from the service on May 17, 2022.
Justice Ongaya concurred with Mwende that the disciplinary panel that made the decision to dismiss her was not properly constituted, rendering its decisions null and void.
The judge also found that TSC acted discriminatively by dismissing Mwende while other officers culpable in similar circumstances were either suspended or simply warned.
Therefore, the judge ruled that Mwende’s dismissal was excessive and amenable to being set aside.
Court Orders TSC to Reinstate & Compensate Sacked Senior Manager for Unlawful Dismissal
