FORMER Harare City Football Club coach Bigboy Mawiwi has approached the High Court seeking the registration of an arbitral award, as a court order, with a view to execute a judgment granted in his favour in order to recover over $25 000 in unpaid salaries and terminal benefits.
BY CHARLES LAITON
Mawiwi made the application in February and the matter is set to be heard in the High Court tomorrow.
However, the Harare City Council-owned football club has since filed an opposing affidavit challenging the registration of Mawiwi’s arbitral award saying the judgment had since been challenged.
In the application filed on his behalf by a Harare law firm, Rubaya and Chatambudza Legal Practitioners, Mawiwi said he was employed by Harare City Football Club as head coach on a fixed-term contract before termination of his employment on July 29, 2014.
He further said he was owed wages and terminal benefits which the football club was refusing to pay despite the existence of an arbitral award.
“On November 25, 2015, an arbitral award was made in my favour by the honourable arbitrator M Dangwa in terms of which it was ordered as follows; 1, that respondent (Harare City) be, and is hereby ordered to pay $25 817 being terminal benefits and salary owed in three equal monthly instalments.
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“2, the first installment be paid by December 31, 2015 and the balance will be paid by the last day of each consecutive month thereafter”
He added: “Despite the respondent having been served with the award on December 1, 2015 and the respondent being aware of the contents and obligations thereof, it has refused, neglected and/or failed to pay me the amount which I was awarded, thus necessitating the present application.”
In response to the application, the club’s chairperson, Alois Masepe, urged the court to dismiss the registration of the award arguing it was wrongly granted.
“The award should not be registered because it is plainly wrong. It is wrong because the monies awarded were wrongly calculated,” Masepe said in his opposing affidavit.
“The respondent has lodged a challenge against the award and same must, therefore, not be registered pending such challenge. The registration of the award at this stage will render all the appeal process merely academic. If such award is registered and enforced, the respondent will lose money in circumstances where there is potential of succeeding on appeal.”
