EEC SUSPENDS GMF LAWRENCE NSIBANDZE

MBABANE – The Eswatini Electricity Company (EEC) has suspended its General Manager Finance (GMF) Lawrence Nsibandze for alleged insubordination.

Nsibandze was suspended following his alleged continuous refusal to take an instruction and showing gross insubordinate behaviour towards the managing director Meshack Kunene. He was suspended pending disciplinary action to be instituted against him.

This follows his refusal to be transferred to be the General Manager Support Services (GMSS), a position he argued he was not qualified for.
Nsibandze has since taken legal action against the company, seeking an order to set aside his suspension and that he be reinstated to his position of GMF.

He also wants the court to grant him an order to have full possession and access to the GMF ellipse profile, an operating system used by the company to authorise or decline suppliers’ orders, among other things. Nsibandze, in his affidavit, argued that his suspension was unlawful as it was a violation of the Public Enterprise Unit Act and a breach of his employment contract. He submitted that the transfer constituted a demotion from his present status and argued that it would result in a loss of job satisfaction.

Nsibandze argued that he had the right not to be transferred to the position of GMSS or denied access to his profile without due process which would include strict adherence by the company to the PEU Act. He alleged that he was not consulted prior to the purported transfer and suspension.
“As a result of my insisting not to follow an unlawful instruction, I was suspended. In my submission the suspension itself is unlawful in the circumstances,” Nsibandze submitted.

Nsibandze, narrating the background of events leading to his suspension, arrived that he received a letter on September 12, 2018 from the EEC Managing Director informing him that he was appointed to the position of GMSS. His appointment, he alleged, was to be effective from September 17. He submitted that he did not accept the appointment nor sign a new performance agreement.

Nsibandze submitted that he wrote a letter to Kunene on the next day asking to be furnished with a legal instrument from the Standing Committee on Public Enterprises (SCOPE) or the PEU supporting his new appointment.

He submitted that he further wrote a letter to the EEC board chairman to express certain concerns about the appointment. He submitted that in the letter, he requested to be furnished with SCOPE minutes and Cabinet minutes wherein his appointment was sanctioned in terms of the PEU Act.  He alleged that the letter was not responded to.

In the letter to EEC Board Chairman S’thofeni Ginindza, annexed in the court papers, Nsibandze argued that he was one of the highly qualified professionals in the Kingdom of Eswatini or if not the best and had vast experience. He also argued that he could not then be transferred to a field for which he did not hold relevant qualifications.

Nsibandze argued to Ginindza that he was allegedly being set up for failure as the division he was transferred to had nothing to do with finance or accounting.
“The writing is on the wall that the above move (transfer) by the board is constructive dismissal in a sense,” Nsibandze wrote to Ginindza.
Nsibandze argued that he had never applied for the GMSS position as he was an experienced chartered accountant by profession, who held various qualifications related to that.

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