Bulawayo Labour Court president Justice Selo Nare has been accused of giving TM Supermarkets favourable judgments in a case involving three of its section managers in return for a tender to supply farm produce.
Report by Richard Muponde
The allegations are contained in an application to the Bulawayo High Court by the section managers filed yesterday in which they are seeking the nullification of Justice Nare’s judgments in the labour dispute with their employer.
Itayi Nkomo, Thembinkosi Nyathi and Khumbula Tshili are fighting their employer over $2 390 each in unpaid bonuses which the arbitrator awarded them on October 23 last year.
Justice Nare granted an order on January 10 this year suspending the award.
The trio yesterday approached the High Court seeking to nullify Justice Nare’s judgment and for him to recuse himself from the case, arguing that they were not going to get justice since the judge was a service provider to TM Supermarkets.
They said Justice Nare was aware of the allegations, as he read them a document in his chambers, which had such allegations and accused the trio of being the authors of the damning report.
“While we were still worried about the so-called note, which was read by the honourable president to us, we then discovered again that the respondent (TM Supermarkets) is a customer of the honourable president,” read the founding affidavit by Nkomo.
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“The president is supplying farm produce/vegetables to TM Supermarkets — see attached invoices Annexures I, J, K.”
The TM invoices, which NewsDay had sight of, allegedly bore Justice Nare’s name.
“We then recalled the contents of the note which he (Justice Nare) read to us and we had to conclude that the honourable president is an interested party in our matter, therefore, he cannot have justice and had no justice in our matter because he was offered a tender to supply fresh vegetables to respondent (TM Supermarkets) by the TM general manager whom the note implicated to be in corruption (sic) with him,” reads the affidavit.
Justice Nare in the court papers is said to have been seen at the TM Lobengula branch manager’s office in November last year, having a soft drink.
“After he had left, the manager then came at the tills and we heard him talking to one of the till operators saying they will win this case and they will make sure that this time their appeal and chamber application will be sent to the honourable president Mr Nare and not the other lady president and we were surprised, what kind of utterance is that . . . and on top of that he is a friend to a TM top manager, Mr J C Ncube, who offered him this tender,” the papers read. The line managers on January 23 this year obtained an order from Bulawayo High Court judge Justice Martin Makonese compelling TM Supermarkets to pay them $2 390 each in backpay.
But the supermarket group reportedly refused to pay the managers the money accusing them of refusing to work on Unity Day in 2009. The wrangle between the managers and their employers started in 2009.
