A chef in a busy hotel in Bungoma County will be smiling all the way to the bank after he won a Ksh1.3 million case for unfair firing.
A report by the Standard on Thursday, February 10, indicated that the chef, Michael Otieno Ouma, had been fired from Bonito Hotels Limited after serving for three years.
According to the hotel, Ouma was contracted as a consultant and it did not consider that position as formal employment to warrant an exit package.
“The chef was not our employee, but we engaged him for consultancy services, which are purely commercial in nature and not employment.
“We paid him a fee, not salary, which is a feature of the employment contract. Our engagement with him did not provide his specific duties including benefits like insurance," argued the hotel according the publication.
In her ruling, Justice Jemima Keli, however, sided with the complainant arguing that the hotel had no objection to the amount.
The judge also directed the hotel to reimburse the former employee his suit case.
“Ouma seeks salary arrears and other benefits amounting to Sh1,341,330 and has attached and produced the tabulation of the arrears. The hotel did not rebut the amount,” he ruled.
This comes barely a month after a court has ordered Pandya Memorial Hospital to pay Ksh3 million to a lab technician who discriminately retired in 2015.
The hospital is said to have asked Geeta Joshi to retire by the end of 2015, having clocked 55-years-old, which they argued was a retirement age for a female staff.
"The employment records at our disposal indicate that you were born in 1960. We seek to advise you that the management will retire you upon the date that you will celebrating your 55th birthday," a letter issued by the management read in part.
The court further ruled that the hotel had discriminated against the female employee by retiring her at the age of 55 meaning the male counterparts had a higher limit.
