Keg beer production line at the EABL plant in Ruaraka, Nairobi on October 9, 2019.
The Senate Labour committee has directed Kenya Breweries Limited (KBL) to pay 125 former employees who retrenched in 1997 their one months’ pay in lieu as had been directed by court.
The committee has given the company up to June to fully comply with a High Court ruling delivered in January 2018 that handed the former employees who were retrenched following a restructuring process in the company’s Kisumu and Mombasa plants the pay as per their contract.
The former employees were sent home after KBL undertook a restructuring process aimed at cost-cutting and efficiency improvements through automation of some of their services.
The petitioners led by Lawrence Ndutu told the committee that initially they were offered voluntary early retirement, but claimed that later, the company resorted to forced redundancies sending staff on compulsory leave before finally terminating their contracts upon return.
The committee chaired by West Pokot Senator Julius Murgor waded into the matter after the 125 employees petitioned the Senate seeking help of the House over their unpaid dues despite the court awarding them the compensation.
The committee in a meeting with the petitioners, Kaplan and Stratton who represented KBL and Harrison Kinyanjui who represented the petitioners in the suit directed the matter to be settled with finality by June.
Mr Murgor directed the Advocates Complaints Commission (ACC) Secretary George Nyakundi who was also present in the meeting to ensure that the committee directive is adhered to and the petitioners are paid.
“We need a report in June and you will be here to give us a report whether these people have been paid or not. If by then they will have not been paid, then just know that your boss will be here,” Mr Murgor said.
The amount each employee is owed was not disclosed since they were earning different amounts with the committee directing Kaplan and Stratton Advocates and KBL to compute the figures and settle the dues by June, 2025
The petitioners got the favourable court ruling after a protracted 15-year legal battle where Justice Joseph Sergon ruled in their favour of the claimants on January 24, 2018.
The judgment ordered KBL, represented by Kaplan & Stratton, to pay one month’s salary as damages, settle withheld refundable deposits totalling Sh9.4 million, and cover the costs of the suit. The sum was to accrue interest until full payment was made.
However, the petitioners claim they did not receive their full entitlements with Mr Ndutu telling the committee that in July 2018, their advocate, Harrison Kinyanjui, made them sign discharge vouchers indicating that the amounts to be received were “full and final settlements”.
Mr Ndutu told Senators that their advocate Mr Kinyanjui allegedly took advantage of their limited understanding, as the payments they received excluded the court-awarded one-month salary in lie.
'Swindled'
Further, Mr Ndutu stated that Mr Kinyanjui collected Sh250, 000 to lodge an appeal at the Court of Appeal, but no such appeal was ever filed.
“We went to court because we were retrenched by KBL. We feel we were duped. The Advocate misled us. He told us that he will appeal but he has never appealed. When we went to the Advocates Complaints Commission, we were told never to go back there again,” Mr Ndutu told the committee.
The petitioners said that even though the Sh9.4 million was eventually disbursed, interest payments only covered the period up to November 2021 which is two months short of the full entitlement by the time they received their final payments in January 2022.
Kaplan and Stratton Advocates confirmed to the committee that it paid Sh14, 756,312 to Harrison Advocates. The amount included the party and party cost of the suit as awarded by the court with interests that accrued on the decretal sum of up to November 31, 2021 According to the petitioner, their woes in chasing for the payments emanates from poor execution of the court order which they say was mishandled by their lawyer by making them sign a vague discharge voucher that ostensibly closed the matter.
Despite outstanding concerns, the committee heard that on January 11, 2022, their advocate Harrison Kinyanjui signed a consent letter confirming that Kaplan & Stratton had fully settled the suit in accordance with the judgment.
This, the petitioners argue effectively closed the case without addressing their grievances over missing salary payments and incomplete interest accrual.
