Court overturns suspension of Ketraco’s General Manager Wamukota
By Richard MungutiThe Employment and Labour Relations Court (ELRC) has quashed the suspension of Anthony Wamukota, the managing director of the Kenya Transmission Electricity Company (Ketraco).
Mr Justice Byrum Ongaya ruled that the suspension was unlawful.
In his ruling, Justice Ongaya said the enforcement of the suspension letter was in breach of fair labour practices, making the whole process unprocedural.
The Judge agreed with Wamukota that the company had overlooked it’s Human Resources Policy and Procedures Manual in deciding to unlawfully suspend him.
Wamukota had argued that the mandate to hear and decide on his suspension rested with the company’s HRAC (Human Resource and Advisory Committee), which never met for such deliberations.
Instead, in November last year, the company’s board of directors at its Extraordinary General Meeting, on the express instructions of the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, decided to suspend him for a period of 12 months, ostensibly to pave the way for an investigation into the Loiyangalani-Suswa power line project.
Wamukota said the Ketraco board had neither called him nor asked him to respond to any allegations before taking the drastic action.
In his ruling, the judge cited various rules that should be followed when dismissing or removing a public officer.
He said such an officer cannot be removed, demoted or subjected to disciplinary proceedings without due process.
This, he said, was the case with Wamukota as this threshold had not been met.
He therefore ordered Ketraco to revoke the suspension of Wamukota and to pay him all outstanding salaries, allowances and benefits accrued to him during the period of the impugned suspension.
The court also issued an order setting aside Ketraco’s CEO’s decision contained in a letter dated November 15 directing the company’s board to suspend Wamukota.