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Mr Kuwaza

Daniel Nemukuyu Senior Court Reporter
The decision by the State Procurement Board chairman Mr Charles Kuwaza to unlawfully fire a finance director, has proved costly as the board is now set to have its property attached to pay off outstanding salaries and damages amounting to $447 000.

Mr Cosmas Neshamba, who was responsible for finance, administration and human resources, was fired unlawfully and got an award for reinstatement at arbitration.

SPB did not reinstate him and it appealed to the Labour Court where the case was again thrown out for non-compliance with the Labour Court rules.

The board had appealed at the Labour Court out of time and it also sought to file its heads of argument out of time.

SPB’s bid to contest the reinstatement of Mr Neshamba reached a dead end when Labour Court judge Justice Lilian Kudya last week threw out the board’s application for late filing of an appeal.

The dismissal of the application gave the green light to Mr Neshamba to instruct the sheriff to attach SPB’s property.

“Consequently, the court is of the view that there is no need at all to delve into the niceties of what the applicant’s representatives deposed to in their affidavits as that is of no moment in the instant case,” ruled Justice Kudya.

“The application being ill-placed should, therefore, fail. It is ordered that application for condonation of late filing of heads of argument being improperly before the court, it is hereby dismissed with costs.”

Matsikidze and Mucheche law firm represented Mr Neshamba while the Attorney General’s Office acted for SPB.

Mr Neshamba claims that the SPB defied an arbitration judgment directing that he must be reinstated with full benefits, and he successfully claimed salary arrears calculated from the date of the unlawful suspension in 2008 to the date of the order for reinstatement.

Mr Neshamba, through his lawyers, said he had instructed the sheriff to attach SPB property to recover the debt.

“We have since instructed the sheriff to attach property from SPB to settle the debt,” said Mr Neshamba.