A POLICE officer has approached the High Court seeking an order to compel Commissioner General of the Police, Augustine Chihuri, the Police Service Commission and Home Affairs minister Ignatius Chombo to allow him to retire from service.
BY CHARLES LAITON
In his court application seeking an interdict against the police, Tymon Tabana also cited police chief of staff officer (human resources), Justice Chifunye Chengeta, as the first respondent.
Tabana said he was being forced to seek the court’s intervention because his employer was refusing him a chance to retire despite having attained retirement stage.
The reason for the police refusal, Tabana said, was that the police force was claiming it had funded his university education and as such wanted him to work until he has fully compensated the force.
“Sometime in the year 2010, first and second respondents (Chengeta and Chihuri) purportedly entered into an agreement wherein the police service were to sponsor me to undergo studies at the University of Zimbabwe,” he said in his founding affidavit.
“The police did not, after the signing of the agreement, sponsor the studies as agreed. I undertook the studies as a self-sponsored student, who was granted time to study only. While the purported agreement has all clauses relating to the respondents’ rights to discharge me and require me to pay them upon demand before the discharge procedure, it does not have a clause where I can exercise the same for any reason.”
He added: “I have since reached pensionable age and would like to retire from the police service. The respondents have, through the first respondent, denied me the right to retire.”
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Tabana further said he was interested in exercising his right arising by operation of law that he may retire on reaching pensionable age and could not “afford to be subjected to slavery and servitude”.
However, in response to the application, Chengeta urged the court to dismiss it, arguing Tabana had decided to absent himself from work without official leave, adding the police were seeking to arrest him for his actions.
“Ideally, applicant should have sought to challenge the non-processing of his application with this court rather than violating a law, then seek recourse from the same law that he has violated,” Chengeta said, adding Tabana was serving a bonding contract, which was in subsistence and was due to run until 2021.
The matter is pending at the court.
