Africa Safari Glamping are to pay their former five gardeners several terminal benefits, including 12 months’ salary for illegally terminating their employment during the corona pandemic. This follows a decision of the High Court in Arusha that dismissed the application for revision lodged by the company to challenge the award by the Commission for Mediation and Arbitration (CMA), which ruled in favour of Yohana Said and four others. “Going by the evidence on record, I find no reason or justification to fault the decision of CMA. It is hereby upheld. This application is without merits. I dismiss it,” Judge Ilvin Mugeta declared in the judgement delivered recently. Other terminal benefits ordered by the CMA in favour of the respondents were one month’s salary in lieu of notice, severance allowance, unpaid salaries for days worked without salary and service certificate. The total value of the benefits in monetary terms was not immediately made clear. The counsel for the applicant, Mr Kessy Ngau, had submitted that the decision of the CMA was fraught with illegalities because it agreed that the respondents were terminated but proceeded to decide in their favour, which is illegal. In his decision, the judge held that the CMA was right as the respondents were stopped from working for valid reasons. That, he said, cannot be termed as termination. Rather, they were constructively terminated when the situation normalised but they were not reinstated. “Therefore, the CMA was justified to find there was no termination except for failure to reinstate them which amounts to constructive termination. Compensation in lieu of reinstatement was ordered because the evidence on record shows that their positions had been filled by other people,” he ruled. Facts show that the respondents were employed by the applicant on diverse dates between 2016. On March 18, 2020, the applicant ordered the respondents to stop going to work due to the outbreak of the corona pandemic and subsequently terminated their employment, which the court has now said it was unprocedural and improper.
