The Industrial Court has ordered Nice House of Plastics to pay its former employee, Victoria Nakiwa, Shs 38 million after it unlawfully sacked her in July 2020.
Without being exact, the company accused Nakiwa of being involved in some ‘sort of fraud’ over an invoice for 100 cartons of toothbrushes to Capital Shoppers that led to a loss of Shs 54 million.
In a span of nine years, Nakiwa, a 34-year-old mother of two, had risen from a storekeeper to an accountant at the Bugolobi-based firm founded by the late James Mulwana. She earned Shs 1.4 million per month, and her major role was to reconcile customer invoices.
However, on July 30, 2020, she was abruptly locked out of the company’s computer system and told to report to Jinja Road police station. She was pregnant at the time.
At Jinja Road, police officers confiscated her work laptop and requested that she provide some documents. She did, but when she went back to Nice House of Plastics, she was dismissed. She took them to court.
In court, the Group Head of Human Resources at Nice House of Plastics, Gloria Tibakunirwa, admitted she had not been involved in the process that led to the sacking of Nakiwa and relied on documents she had never seen before.
“I wasn’t aware of their existence,” she said under cross-examination.
Nakiwa’s lawyer, Fahad Siraji, told the court his client was “dismissed even after she had given the company the additional information requested from her, and without being allowed to defend herself”.
James Zeere of S&L Advocates, who represented Nice House of Plastics, insisted that the procedure had been followed. He said Nakiwa was sent an invitation to attend a disciplinary hearing, which was held on August 26, 2020.
“She failed to explain how an invoice was issued for goods allegedly delivered… yet the goods were not received after almost five days,” Zeere argued.
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In the end, Justice Linda Lillian Tumusiime Mugisha said Nice House of Plastics had failed to adduce any evidence in the form of a suspension letter [for Nakiwa].
“It did not place any investigative report before us,” she wrote.
She said even after Nakiwa eventually supplied the data, “she was not allowed to address any adverse issues arising out of it” by the company.
The court found the dismissal both “procedurally and substantively unlawful” and awarded her Shs 38 million in general and punitive damages.
