Employee Awarded Ksh9M in Missing Sugar Case

A fired Delmonte warehouse and logistics manager, Patrick Njuguna Kariuki, is set to be paid Ksh8.8 Million after he won an unfair dismissal court case he had filed against his former employer.  The top manager was fired in November 2009 over allegations of stealing sugar in the fruit grower and processing company.The Court of Appeal quashed an appeal filed by Delmonte challenging the decision by the industrial court to award the damages. An aerial view of pineapples growing at Delmonte Kenya Limited farm.Daily Nation Appellate judges William Ouko, Wanjiru Karanja and Agnes Murgor stated that the company failed to file the appeal in accordance with court rules.The court added that Delmonte did not issue Kariuki with a copy of the letter requesting for certified proceedings of the industrial court.Delmonte also failed to file the application for a time extension for the appeal having overshot the 60-day window.The appellate judges stated that the record of appeal was filed on August 21, 2017, while the judgment that the company intended to challenge was delivered on October 26, 2012.Delmonte was ordered to pay Kariuki Ksh8,863,282 and to re-engage him in his previous position.   Kariuki was charged after the company lost a consignment of sugar worth Ksh4.6 Million in circumstances that were subject to police investigations.The manager was acquitted of the theft charges in 2011 as the court ruled that sugar was outside his duties as he was in charge of the company’s products and not raw materials.Justice Ongaya also noted that Kariuki was entitled to fair treatment as stated in the Constitution and the Employment Act, 2007.”The Respondent deserves censure for such flagrant breach of the law against its trustworthy and long-serving officer (22 years) who had dedicated all his professional life from the youthful age, immediately after university graduation to the service of the Respondent,” he said. A court in Kenya.File