Court awards Shs50m to sacked KCC employees

High Court Judge Lydia Mugambe

What you need to know:

  • Court documents indicate that they worked as employees of the defunct KCC which ceased to exist on February 28, 2011 when the KCCA Act came into effect on March 1, 2011.
  • Following their sacking, they petitioned court challenging what they called illegal, marred in procedural impropriety, irregular and unfair, the subjection of their employment to termination under the guidelines.

KAMPALA. The High Court in Kampala has awarded Shs50m to 10 former employees of the defunct Kampala City Council (KCC), who were sacked three months after it was changed to Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) in 2011.
Justice Lydia Mugambe in her judgment, held that their termination was embarrassing and inconvenienced them financially.
To that effect, the judge ordered both the KCCA and government to jointly compensate the affected former workers for having been their source of pain and suffering for this long.

The affected ex KCC workers are; Justine Kasule, Robinah Kayongo Kayondo, Simon Muhumuza, Geoffrey Ndaula, Angella Semembo, Godfrey Musisi Kiregga, Brain Ssegawa, Frank Waidha, Frank Kaitale and Geoffrey Kiiza.
“In this case, the applicants were public servants who expected to work until they were 60 years. Their termination was embarrassing and inconveniencing. They have suffered financially since they were put out of jobs without opportunity to be absolved under other public service departments,” said justice Mugambe in a judgment read on April 24.
Adding: “Taking all these considerations into account, the applicants have demonstrated to my satisfaction that they are deserving of general damages. I hereby award each of the applicants, general damages of Shs5m each.”

However, the judge declined to award the sacked employees exemplary or punitive damages as prayed.
The judge further ordered that to avoid any inconvenience and conflicts between the fired employees and their lawyers, the payments should be made directly to their bank accounts after deductions of lawyers’ fees which should also be directly be paid to the lawyers’ accounts.
Court documents indicate that they worked as employees of the defunct KCC which ceased to exist on February 28, 2011 when the KCCA Act came into effect on March 1, 2011.

The Act created the KCCA to replace and takeover from KCC. During this transition, the ten affected employees also worked under KCCA for some time before their services were terminated.
Following their sacking, they petitioned court challenging what they called illegal, marred in procedural impropriety, irregular and unfair, the subjection of their employment to termination under the guidelines.