BY JAMES MUTASA

Portable Hire (Pvt) Ltd recently agreed to pay compensation for loss of employment to an unfairly dismissed employee, Rutendo Masasa.

Masasa was employed by Portable Hire as a driver, through his representative the National Union of Metal and Allied Industries in Zimbabwe (NUMAIZ) reported the matter of unfair dismissal to the National Employment Council for the Electronics Communications Radio & TV Manufacturing and Allied Industry for conciliation where parties reached for a settlement.

The certificate of settlement signed by parties before the Designated Agent, Desire Makaure reads thus, “respondent shall pay USD1088 being terminal benefits on the 27/03/25 subject to account submission.”

According to Stephen Dhliwayo, NUMAIZ’s head of legal department, Masasa was verbally dismissed by his employer on allegations of absence from work for five (5) or more consecutive working days without permission or reasonable excuse.

“Portable Hire verbally dismissed Rutendo Masasa without following procedures laid down by Statutory Instrument 88 of 2016, an instrument which they have cited in its verbal charge and subsequent verbal dismissal’’ Dhliwayo told The Worker.

“It is true that Masasa did not report for duty for over five days and according to S.I. 88 of 2016 schedule 4 this is a dismissible offence. But before dismissing an employee an employer should follow disciplinary procedures stipulated by the code of conduct which is S.I. 88 of 2016. In this particular case disciplinary procedures were not followed rendering the dismissal null and void,” Dhliwayo added.

Patrick John Mallon the director of Portable Hire had initially argued that Masasa approached his trade union before officially engaging him, an assertion which Masasa vehemently denied.

“Rutendo just disappeared for over 5 days, only to reappear with a trade union representative claiming unfair dismissal,” Mallon said.