ZBC newscaster's bid to overturn suspension flops

ZIMBABWE Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) newscaster Walter Mupfanochiya's bid to overturn his suspension from the public broadcaster has hit a snag.

This was after the Labour Court dismissed an arbitral award directing the loss-making parastatal to reinstate him.

Mupfanochiya was suspended from his duties for swindling a credit union formed by the broadcaster's managerial employees of over US$30 000 during his tenure as the chairman of ZBC Management Credit Union.

He admitted to committing the offence, leading to his suspension.

During the suspension, Mupfanochiya approached his lawyers and the matter was prematurely referred for arbitration before it was heard at company level.

When the case was placed before the arbitrator, Phillip Bvumbe, he ruled that ZBC had lost jurisdiction to deal with the matter since Mupfanochiya had swindled members of the Management Credit Union and not ZBC per se.

Bvumbe, therefore, ordered reinstatement of the former without loss of salary with an alternative order for damages should reinstatement fail.

ZBC was aggrieved with this ruling and appealed against the verdict to the Labour Court.

The first point of the three grounds of appeal was that, the arbitrator erred by holding that the matter was properly referred to him and that the ZBC disciplinary committee had no jurisdiction over the matter.

The second ground of appeal noted that the arbitrator erred on a point of law in holding that ZBC had no locus standi to prefer disciplinary charges against the respondent when it was clear from the evidence before him that the ZBC managers and its union accessed a loan from CBZ Bank Limited on the basis of a guarantee provided by the appellant.

The third ground of appeal was that the arbitrator misdirected himself on a point of law in purporting to make factual findings to the effect that the respondent was not guilty of offences which he was charged with.

In passing judgment, recorded under LC/H/33/2016, Justice Eunor Makamure, said it was clear that when the matter was referred to arbitration, 30 days had not elapsed from the date of notification to attend the proceedings.

She said a hearing which was supposed to take place on October 4, 2012 was objected to by Mupfanochiya's lawyers.

"Indeed, investigations were carried out into the matter. It was only after investigating the matter that the respondent was required to attend the proceedings. While issues may arise on how long the investigations took, the issue is that when the respondent was notified (that) is when the time started running," she said in her ruling.

Makamure further ruled that the appellant cannot lose jurisdiction to discipline its employee when in essence the operative period required for it to lose jurisdiction had not passed.

"I believe that the reference to arbitration was done prematurely. Hearing proceedings ought to have been completed and if there was need to refer the matter for arbitration that should have happened later," she observed.

"Since the matter was improperly before the arbitrator the facts of the matter were common cause. Accordingly, it is ordered that the arbitral award granted by Honorable Bvumbe dated 22 April 2014 is hereby set aside. The matter is referred back to the employer to discipline the respondent in terms of the applicable code."