- He says in court documents that he was unfairly demoted to the position of Postal Controller.
- Busienei says he always carried out his work diligently and performed his duties as per the employment contract.
A former branch manager of Postal Corporation has sued his employer for allegedly firing him unlawfully after a fire burned down Sh1.2 million in an office.
Wesley Paul Busienei claims he was employed by the corporation on September 1, 1990, as a Postal Officer at the Mombasa Branch and rose through the ranks to the position of Acting Branch Manager 'A' in Machakos.
He earned a salary of approximately Sh70,000 together with other allowances in the period between November 2016 and January 2018.
He says in court documents that he was unfairly demoted to the position of Postal Controller at the City Square Post Office in Nairobi by the time of his dismissal on July 26, 2018.
Busienei says he always carried out his work diligently and performed his duties as per the employment contract with exceptional integrity and willingness to serve the Corporation in the best way.
"I have never had, during the period of his employment, any disciplinary record, either verbal or written regarding the performance of his duties," he argued in court documents.
He avers that his attempt to maintain good work ethics and integrity at the workplace provoked undue wrath among his colleagues in collusion with his superiors who viewed his transparency and straight- forwardness as an impediment towards their personal interests.
He further states that several actions and events were orchestrated by officers of the Corporation which made the working environment unbearable and did whatever they could to ensure that his Employment was unfairly terminated.
The Claimant avers that despite making recommendations to the Respondent to stop misuse of funds, the same fell on deaf ears as no action was taken even to investigate the same and none of the recommendations were implemented, he stated.
"On or about January 17, 2017, the claimant arrived at his work station, Machakos Post office, to find a crowd of people and police gathered. He learnt that a fire had broken out during the night and allegedly burnt a mail bag containing Sh 1.2 million which was allegedly excess remittance from Sultan Hamud Post Master, one Dorothy Njeru", the court was told.
He averred that he was not aware of the same as he had not been informed about the alleged excess remittance from Sultan Hamud Post Master.
Following this fire tragedy, the police launched investigations into the incident and through a Directorate of Criminal Investigations report made several findings and recommendations.
Busienei said the DCI while making recommendations regarding the incident noted that:
"The investigating officer finds a lot of discrepancies and suspects foul play in this."
The report also made several recommendations and highlighted the persons to be charged with several offences arising from the incident.
The DCI recommended that Dorothy Njeru, Fredrick Mulwa and Duncan Musyoka be charged with several offences.
He said the report never found the Claimant culpable of any wrongdoing in the incident as he was not informed of the excess remittance.
On August 23, 2017, he said, the corporate maliciously and without any reasonable cause issued the Claimant with a Disciplinary Notice accusing him of negligence of duty leading to the loss of official cash at Machakos totalling Sh 1,200,000 despite the fact that he was not aware of an existence of the excess remittance.
He was accused of failing to mop up cash on hand from Sultan Hamud Post Office and for failing to make arrangements for safe custody of incoming cash.
In response, Postal Corporation admitted that Busienei was their employer but denied that he was demoted.
The corporation stated that Busienei was on 30/09/2013 sternly warned for negligence of duty leading to loss of revenue of Sh96,890.54.
It admitted that fire broke at its Machakos Post Office on the night of 16th/17th January 2017 but denied that Busienei had not been informed of the remittance of Sh1.2 million by the postmaster of Sultan Hamud Post Office
"The claimant had failed to make arrangements for the safe custody of the incoming cash of Sh1.2 million from Sultan Hamud Post Office," the Corporation says in their response.