Ex-EAC staff lose appeal on pay

{THE Court of Appeal has dismissed the appeal lodged by former employees of the defunct East African Community (EAC) for payment of more than 2.1 trillion/- as additional terminal benefits.}

Such legal feat has been achieved thanks to the Attorney General (AG) Chambers’ effort to rescue the government from disbursing such colossal amount after successfully defending the longest suit in the country’s judicial history.

Justices Nathalia Kimaro, Bernard Luanda and Batuel Mmilla ruled against 5,598 ex-EAC employees, who had been demanding additional payments of 2,178,588,653,941/- apart from the 117bn/- consented by the parties in an outof- court-settlement.

Such 117bn/- were to be paid to the workers as pension, additional pensions, provident fund, severance allowances, gratuity, redundancy payments in lieu of notice, one month salary in lieu of notice, loss of office benefit, outstanding leave and repatriation expenses, among others.

It was a result of a deed of settlement that had been entered by the parties in 2005 in respect of 31,831 workers. However, the said 5,598 ex-employees appeared to have been dissatisfied with such payments and filed an application for certificate involving additional payments of 416,166,090,304/30.

High Court Judge Fauz Twaib dismissed the application on May 23, 2011, ruling that a certificate must be issued to an applicant who has claims against the government and indicating the exact amount he/she is claiming for the purposes of enabling the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury to make payments. Five years later, the appellants decided to take the matter to the Court of Appeal. But this time around, the amount demanded was not 416,166,090,304/30 but 2,178,588,653,941/-.

But the justices of the appeals court dismissed the appeal because it lacked merits. “It makes no sense to issue a certificate to a party that had agreed to be paid a certain amount of money in settlement of his or her claim and then comes later on to claim additional payments, which did not even form part of the original agreement,” they observed.

The justices pointed out that if the appellant required a certificate that had to ask for one after the claim was settled and before the payments were effected — as that would have enabled them to know whether the amount of 117bn/- would have settled the amount they were claiming.

“Coming to court after the payments were made and after a period of five years had elapsed, questioning the deed of settlement and claiming that the payments was not made in accordance with the deed of settlements, amounts to asking the court to reopen the negotiations,” they ruled.

The determination of the case by the appellate court marks end of the matter that has been pending since 2003. Principal State Attorney Gabriel Malata, assisted by Senior State Attorneys Mtuli Mwakahesya, Harun Matagane and Alice Mtulo, had appeared for the AG.

In the appeal, the workers, who were appellants, were being represented by a team of seasoned members of the bar comprising advocates Jotham Lukwalo, Charles Semgalawa, Adronius Byamungu and Narindwa Sekimanga.

The dispute in question could be traced since June 30, 1977 when the countries of Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda disbanded from the members of a body of regional cooperation called East African Community. Prior to that, the three countries under the Community carried on many joint activities.

They included a common air carrier, a harbours corporation, railways, posts and telecommunications; and cargo handling services, just to mention a few.

However, in December 1976, the Community began to break up with the collapse of some of its corporations. From then on, the three countries took their different paths and each established its own entities to take over the places and functions of the many institutions of the defunct Community.

Due to its collapse, the employment relationship between the Community and its staff came to an end.

Even though most of its staff members were taken on board by the newly-established institutions, they were not paid the pensions and other benefits that they were earned as EAC employees. It took them many years of following up before a decision was finally made to pay them.

Source:Daily News:[Ex-EAC staff lose appeal on pay->http://www.dailynews.co.tz/index.php/home-news/46754-ex-eac-staff-lose-appeal-on-pay]