’Marafaele Mohloboli
TWO hundred former Home Affairs department employees were on Tuesday awarded compensation amounting to M1,4 million by the Directorate of Dispute Prevention and Resolution (DDPR) for unfair dismissal in February 2015.
The applicants took up the matter with DDPR after their contracts as Data Processing Officers were prematurely terminated by the Home Affairs department which alleged they had been hired on the basis of their political affiliation by the-then Minister of Home Affairs, Joang Molapo during the tenure of the coalition government led by former Prime Minister Thomas Thabane.
Chief Molapo is the deputy leader of the Basotho National Party (BNP) party which was part of the coalition government from 2012 to 2015 with Dr Thabane’s All Basotho Convention (ABC) as well as the Lesotho Congress of Democracy (LCD) led by current Deputy Prime Minister Mothetjoa Metsing.
The applicants who were relieved of their duties seven months before the expiry of their contracts worked in different parts of the country and were being paid a gross monthly salary of M7 168.
According to the award papers “they were left with some seven months before their contracts could be terminated by operation of law…they will then be entitled to each get M50 176 wages before tax” for the seven months which were left before the expiry of their contracts.
In its ruling, the DDPR said the applicants’ dismissal was “substantively unfair” and ordered that the Ministry of Home Affairs pay the money within 30 days of receiving the ruling.
The DDPR Secretary Administrator, Mary Sefale said the ruling was binding and the “Labour Court is vested with all powers to see that all decisions are adhered to.”
“Whatever other glitches surface during a valid contract are not the business of the applicant because they do not form part of the contract,” Ms Sefale said.
