How  aquaculture company Yalelo lost Shs 176m court case to former employee

The High court in Kampala has ordered, Yalelo Uganda Limited, an aquaculture company to pay its former commercial director, Martin Kasasira over Shs 176 million for unlawful and unfair dismissal.

A four-judge panel of the Industrial Division led by justice Anthony Wabwire Musana, Jimmy Musimbi, Emmanuel Bigirmana, and Can Amos Lapenga, held that Kasasira was dismissed from his job without a fair hearing.

Kasasira got the Yalelo job 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, Yalelo chief executive officer (CEO) Piers Mudd, wrote to him an email complaining about his performance. Mudd asked for a meeting with Kasasira 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 High court. In its decision, 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…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,” the court ruled.

Court 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 Shs 12,096,774 for his outstanding leave payment, Shs 37,545,000 for one month of pay, Shs 70,084,300 as severance pay and Shs 56,317,500 for in general damages. All these moneys attract a 14  per cent interest from the time the order was made until full payment.

By URN