Appellate court suspends judgement against NLC boss
Geoffrey Mosoku
Acting National Land Commission chief executive Kabale Tache got a temporary reprieve after Appeals court suspended a contempt of court judgement against her.
A three-judge benchlast Friday put on hold the decision of the High Court to fine Kabale Sh300,000 for failing to implement a court directive of reinstating four senior officers.
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Judges Fatuma Sichale, Hannah Okwengu and Wanjiru Karanja suspended the ruling until an appeal the acting CEO filed is heard and determined.
“This court is pleased to issue a temporary order of stay of execution of ruling by Justice Maureen Onyango pending hearing and determination of this appeal,” the three ruled.
Kabale was found guilty on October 7, 2019 by Justice Onyango of the Employment and Labour Relations Court for failing to reinstate four directors of the commission who had been suspended.
Powers to reinstate
The four directors include Salome Munubi (Valuation), Fibian Lukalo (Research), Francis Mugo (Finance) and Leonard Omullo (Natural resources) who had been suspended by the former commission on allegations of insubordination among others.
Kabale had argued that she didn’t have powers to reinstate or offer employment contracts to the four since according to the NLC human resource manual, that was the mandate of the commission.
However, since the term of the Mohammad Swazuri-led NLC had expired in February, and the court’s ruling was in May 2019, she could not act on the directive until the new commission is appointed.
However on October 11, 2019 Justice Onyango fined her Sh300,000 after finding her in contempt of the court’s directives.
Aggrieved by the findings, Kabale moved to the appellate court on October 15 seeking to clear her name.
Munubi and Mugo are among senior officials of NLC who alongside former chairman Swazuri are battling graft charges in court.
