Court dismisses Kenya Power's application to drop case filed by retrenched workers
The Court of Appeal has refused to strike out a Sh3.4 billion compensation suit filed by former Kenya Power employees.
In a ruling, Eldoret judges Gatembu Kairu, Fred Ochieng and Weldon Korir dismissed Kenya Power's application to strike out the case.
What you need to know:
- Kenya Power argued that the former employees had been given adequate notice of the intended retrenchment and that some of the notice had been given verbally.
- The company argued that the retrenchment of employees was necessitated by internal business challenges that had rendered the company unable to sustain its operations.
The Court of Appeal has refused to strike out a Sh3.4 billion compensation suit filed by former Kenya Power employees.
In a ruling, Eldoret judges Gatembu Kairu, Fred Ochieng and Weldon Korir dismissed Kenya Power's application to strike out the case.
The power utility, through its manager of legal services, Ochieng Jude, argued that the appeal by the former workers, led by Noah Kosgey and Allison Ondiman, was filed outside the time limit stipulated in Rule 84 (1) of the Court of Appeal rules.
In their ruling, the judges said there was a possibility that the court could allow the dismissed workers to file the supplementary record of appeal.
“The respondents, in a bid to cure the omission of the decree from the record, have since filed an application seeking to have their supplementary record of appeal deemed to have been duly filed. The said application is yet to be canvassed and it would be wrong for us to pre-determine its fate,” ruled the judges.
The 331 retrenched workers moved to the Court of Appeal after the Employment and Labour Relations Court dismissed their case.
Justice Nelson Jorum found that the retrenchment of the aggrieved workers was justified and that due process had been followed.
In his ruling, the judge said the company had suffered losses between 1998 and 2002 as a result of a prolonged drought, which made it difficult to generate electricity and made it necessary to cut costs.
“The court has considered the facts and circumstances of this dispute and based on the findings made in respect of the reasons and process of redundancy herein and is not persuaded that the claimants have sufficiently demonstrated that the respondent knowingly misrepresented and concealed any material facts to them in this particular matter to constitute fraud,” ruled the court.
The workers' services at Kenya Power were terminated between June 2001 and 2002 in a massive layoff exercise that prompted them to file the case 21 years ago.
Among other things, the former workers were seeking Sh1 billion in lost allowances and Sh2.2 billion they claimed was illegally deducted from the terminal benefits they were owed.
They had claimed that the company had issued them with letters of termination that were later changed to letters of redundancy, arguing that they did not understand whether they were being retrenched.
In its defence, Kenya Power argued that the former employees had been given adequate notice of the intended retrenchment and that some of the notice had been given verbally.
The company argued that the retrenchment of employees was necessitated by internal business challenges that had rendered the company unable to sustain its operations, necessitating the retrenchment.
Judge Jorum noted that since the cost-cutting programme was a government initiative, the decision to terminate the employment of the 331 applicants must have been approved by the Cabinet.
