BY SAM ALFAN.
A former senior employee of Safaricom will paid Sh14.5 million after a judge found that she was unfairly sacked by the giant telecommunications company.
Employment and Labour Relations judge Maureen Onyango ordered Safaricom to pay Pauline Wangeci Warui, a former Director Customer care Sh14,552,600.
The judge dismissed a counter-claim filed by the giant telcos.
“I declare the termination of Director Customer care Pauline Wangeci Warui unfair and award her compensation the sum of Kshs. 14,552,600.00”, ruled the judge.
Wangeci had worked for the company for seven years, until March 20, 2015.
It was her argument that she had a legitimate expectation to serve Safaricom till retirement age of 60 years.
She told the court that she was entitled to compensation and damages assessed on the basis of her monthly gross pay as at March 20,2015 till her expected retirement.
Her tabulation totalled to a sum of Sh442,556,900, factoring annual increments, inflation and interest.
She also wanted to be paid shilling 29,504,460 million for wrongful termination, which was equivalent to 12 months salary based on the gross salary earned at the time of wrongful termination.
She argued that on March 20,2015 while at Strathmore business school attending a two week program sponsored and paid for by the company, she was called by the office of chief executive officer (CEO) allegedly for an urgent appraisal.
Her attempts to reschedule the appraisal on grounds that she was in the middle of continuous assessment test at the school were declined.
When she arrived at the CEO’s office, he called in the human resources director and she was informed that they had decided to mutually separate.
She added that she was immediately led to the boardroom where the corporate affairs and and legal services director was waiting with a “mutual separation agreement”.
“Since everything was abrupt I did not sign the mutual separation agreement immediately but I requested to be allowed to consult my family. I was immediately escorted out of Safaricom’s premises,” said Wangeci.
On the same day, the CEO sent communication to all its employees announcing senior leadership changes necessitated by “an appreciation that business had become disconnected from its customers “,.
The CEO further sent out a press release to the effect that customer care director Pauline Wangeci Warui had opted to step down to pursue personal interests.
Wangeci further told the employment court that otter than the unlawful and malicious sacking, the company disparaged and damaged her character and reputation through media channels and in meetings held at the company’s place of work while addressing members of the staff with other strangers known to her without any reasonable or lawful excuse.
Safaricom in it response claimed that the investigations established that Wangeci’s department had for a period of time systematically doctored performance reports with her knowledge and connivance to show higher performance so as to meet targets.
The company claimed it received the information through its whistleblower system of alleged doctoring of performance reports in the customer care center.
According to Safaricom, the auditors undertook an investigation of the allegations including interviews with the staff and checking the reports presented by Wangeci to the executive committee of the company against the raw data in the system.
The investigations revealed that there was a systematic doctoring of reports. Data from the call centre system was altered to reflect better performance whereas the actual performance was below target.
