Revai Mudyiwa v OK Zimbabwe Limited

### Preamble
IN THE LABOUR COURT OF ZIMBABWE
JUDGMENT NO LC/H/325/2016
HARARE, 6 AUGUST 2015 &
CASE NO LC/H/117/2014
13 MAY 2016
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IN THE LABOUR COURT OF ZIMBABWE	         JUDGMENT NO LC/H/325/2016

HARARE, 6 AUGUST 2015 &				         CASE NO LC/H/117/2014

13 MAY 2016

REVAI MUDYIWA								     APPELLANT

OK ZIMBABWE LIMITED						   RESPONDENT

Before the honourable G Musariri : Judge

For the Appellant	Mr Z Mufanebadza, Unionist

For the Respondnet	Ms R T L Matsika, Attorney

MUSARIRI J:

The appellant worked for the respondent as an I T Support Officer at Head Office in Harare. He was charged with misconduct (gross incompetence or inefficiency in the performance of work). He was found guilty and then dismissed from employment. He appealed against his dismissal to the respondent’s appeals machinery. On 27 January 2014 the Final Appeals Committee dismissed his appeal. He then appealed to this court. The respondent opposed the appeal.

The grounds of appeal were rather prolix. They did not state shortly the grounds upon which the appeal was based. However they did put in issue the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the conviction. I shall deal with the appeal on that basis. The case against the appellant appears from the minutes of the hearing held on 12 February 2013. One Sibanda summarised the case as follows:

“On the summary of allegation it’s been said on 1 February you were assigned to attend to P O S Server for OK Queensdale which had developed a problem. You took the whole day preparing a replacement server and restoring data from the faulty one. You went on to connect the replacement server on the night of 1 February 2013 before you had fully completed work on it. As a result a number of problems were experienced before the branch could open for business on 2 February 2013. The problems included the system registering ‘not found’ at the Till points as well as price overcharging on a number of products in the shop. As a result of these problems emanating from the Server you had worked on, Queensdale branch was forced to close for business from 9.00 am to 5.00 pm when the problem was eventually rectified.”

In summary the appellant was tasked to fix a faulty server. That was part and parcel of his duties as the IT Support Officer. He spent the whole day trying to fix the server. He reinstalled same at the end of day. The first thing the next day it was found that further problems had arisen from the server the appellant had “repaired”. These problems necessitated the closure of the respondent’s supermarket for the whole day. The problem was eventually fixed by the replacement of the motherboard on the server. These are technical matters which I have simplified as best as I understood them.

Filed of record is an e-mail from R Hove, a technician. It is dated 5 February 2013. He found the appellant with the server at their headquarters. He suggested that the appellant replace the mother board and return the server to the branch. The appellant did not heed the advice. He tinkered with the server but failed to fix it as shown by the further problems which showed up the next day. The problem was eventually resolved by replacing the hard drive as suggested by Hove.

At the appeal hearing the appellant responded to the charges thus:

“RM  	This thing was not done properly so I cannot say there was competency but there contributed. Why are you focusing on me only, a reasonable someone could have asked why I took long to resolve the problems.”

I consider the concession as an admission of guilt. It confirms the charge laid and is consistent with the material evidence. That the appellant later reconsidered his position and resiled from the admission is neither here nor there. The incompetence demonstrated was aggravated by failure to follow the correct and timely advice coupled with the resultant closure for a whole day of the respondent’s supermarket. The respondent was within its rights to slap the errant employee with the penalty of dismissal.

Wherefore it is ordered that:

The appeal be and is hereby dismissed; and

Each party shall bear its own costs.

G Musariri

J U D G E