Court slap G4S with Sh10.6million bill for unlawful dismissal of three junior employees
Three former G4S employees have been awarded Sh10.6million as dues and compensation for unlawful termination by the Kenyan subsidiary of the British multinational security services company headquartered in London, England, G4S
While delivering the ruling yesterday, Lady Justice Hellen Wasilwa observed the summary dismissal was unlawful and ordered the firm to pay former employees Sarah Adhiambo, Caroline Wangari and Martin Mwangi as directed.
“G4s has failed to show that they adhered to the provisions of section 40 of Employment Act, which mandates employer to give notice to the employees on the intended redundancy, “Wasilwa ruled.
Through lawyer Cynthia Kwamboka Onyancha, the trio sued the company in 2017 saying they were never notified of their termination.
“We are seeking a declaration that the act of G4s of terminating my clients’ employment on grounds of redundancy was unprocedural, illegal and unlawful,” Onyancha said in court.
She wanted the court to grant them 12 months compensation for unlawful termination among other payments.
The judge added that there is no evidence that there were consultations between the former employees and the company before the said redundancy. She ruled that the minutes of the meetings that are alleged to have had taken place were not produced in court by G4s and therefore the court was unable to deduce whether there was any discussion.
Adhiambo has been awarded Ksh4.2million, Wangari Ksh3.1 million and Mwangi Ksh 3.3 million. The amount is inclusive of 10 months’ compensations for damages, unfair redundancy, unlawful termination, failure to give notice and cost of the petition among other payments.
G4S is grappling with reputation crisis and multiple cases of unlawful sackings of employees.
The troubled security firm has a pending law suit by former Human Resource manager over alleged wrongful termination of his employment contract.
David Mutisya is now demanding Sh100 million in compensation after being dismissed in 2018.
He told the Labour Relations Court that his woes at the security firm started when he questioned opaque hiring of employees after working for the company for over two decades.
”We had people being employed without going through the prescribed process. When I challenged the process as the human resource manager, I was kicked out without any compensation even after serving the firm for 25 year,” Mutisya said.
Under the Kenyan law, it is a requirement that employers should provide equal opportunities without discrimination.
For expatriates, they should provide more specialised skilled tasks which Kenyans cannot perform.
The security firm has in the past been bedeviled by controversies over hiring process of staffers, non-compliance to minimum wage and alleged collusion in criminal activities notably money heists on transit.
