Employment and Labour Relations Court in Nairobi has dismissed a case by two former Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) managers seeking to reverse their termination.

In their application, Thomas Somba and Guyo Godana were seeking to have their dismissal from office suspended and the recruitment of other persons to fill their positions halted.

The court ruled that Somba, who served as KTDA Security Manager and Godana, who was the General Manager for Operations, failed to prove their prayers could be implemented.

“The court is not clear if the prayers are capable of being implemented if the termination letter was issued on 3rd August 2022, so impugning such a letter so many months later is not clear if it is capable of being implemented anyway,” ruled Judge Anna Ngibuini Mwaure.

She went on, “It is not clear if the applicant is still in employment or not. Even if the termination letter is impugned it is not certain to the court if the same is overtaken by events or not.”

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The judge also said the court had not been informed whether the posts had been filled.

“A termination letter was served on the applicant in August 2022 and the court is not informed if another general manager has been recruited or not.

“I am unable to grant these prayers at this point as the court is not seized of the accurate position whether the applicant has already left employment and whether another individual has been recruited to the position.”

Somba and Godana had filed separate applications in court seeking to reverse their termination by KTDA arguing that due process was not followed when they were let go.

The two managers were dismissed in August 2022 as part of reforms within KTDA that started with the election of new factory directors followed by KTDA Holdings directors.

The court further vacated the order barring KTDA from substantively filling their positions, effectively giving the tea agency the go-ahead to advertise and fill the vacant positions.

“Of course, this honourable court had suspended the recruitment by its court order dated 6th October 2022 but cannot stop the organisation recruiting for the position beyond here and so the same order is hereby vacated,” she ruled.

Papers filed in court showed that Somba and Godana had faced internal disciplinary proceedings in KTDA whose outcome was a recommendation that they should be fired.