By The Weekly Vision Reporter
Justice Nderi Nduma has awarded compensation of Ksh. 3.6 million and Ksh. 1.8 million respectively to two former senior employees at Text Book Center. The two were wrongly dismissed by the management over an alleged illicit sex affair against company policy. They were on contracts as Head of Internal Audit, Risk and Compliance, Loss Prevention, and Security Manager when the incident happened.
Details show that Mr K was summoned to the office by the Managing Director on December 8, 2020, for a handover notice of an employee who had resigned and was working under his supervision when the MD and Head of Human Resources questioned him on whether he had a romantic or sexual relationship with a fellow female employee, Ms W. According to Mr K, he was utterly shocked by the line of questioning and denied the allegations.
The MD and HR heads insisted on their allegations against Mr K; they told him that they had discussed the matter with the Chairman of the Board and Board of Directors, and he had directed that he should resign from employment. Mr. K declined the invitation to resign based on fictitious allegations. That is when the managing director produced a written letter of resignation and demanded that he sign it. He requested to call his lawyer, but the managing director refused. He claims that he was coerced to sign the letter of resignation since, at that time, he had been locked out of the company’s servers and that all the company emails and shared drives were already blocked.
The Managing Director told him that if he failed to resign, he was going to make his work life a living hell by instituting and maintaining sexual harassment allegations against her, including against Ms W. He succumbed and unwillingly signed the letter of resignation. The letter of resignation was accepted, and he was cleared out of employment. The MD then sent an email to all 300 staff members, stating that he had received reports of inappropriate behaviour between Mr. K. and Ms. W.
It later emerged that Ms W was also forced to resign similarly after being confronted with a similar allegation of having a sexual relationship with her supervisor. Ms. W revealed that the emails were circulated to 300 staff about the alleged false sexual relationship she had with Mr. K and that she was coerced to resign. It was also revealed that the alleged love affair between them happened after she had just lost her husband, and when the false news reached her relatives, including her in-laws, she suffered pain and anguish as a result.
