Moffat Mungazi
Ray Bande
Senior Reporter
IN a period spanning close to eight years, Chipinge Rural District Council (CRDC) had relentlessly pursued a ‘meritless’ labour case in which the management unfairly dismissed an employee.
Today, The Manica Post can reveal that Mr Samuel Chimuriwo, an artisan, was summoned for a hearing in November 2018 for refusing to take up a Growth Point Supervisor appointment at Checheche Growth Point as a lateral transfer from being a Workshop Superintended at the CRDC Workshop and Mr Chumuriwo was subsequently dismissed.
Since then, the local authority splashed ratepayer’s money in pursuing, but repeatedly losing this matter in different labour courts irrespective of costly financial implications and meritless nature.
Mr Chimuriwo appealed internally during the same month and his appeal was not accepted at council level resulting in him appealing to the National Employment Council Exemptions Committee and the local authority lost the case in 2019.
Chipinge Rural District Council appealed to the Labour Court and they lost in June 2023.
Instead of reinstating Mr Chimuriwo, the local authority wrote him a letter of Contract Termination on Notice on July 14, 2023 and the matter went for arbitration and they lost.
In January 2025, CRDC appealed against the Arbitrator back to Labour Court and subsequently lost in February 2026.
In his conclusion in the latest Labour Court ruling, Honourbale Justice Godfrey Musariri noted: “The afore-going analysis resolves the relevant issues against Appellant. Its appeal, therefore, ought to be dismissed as devoid of merit.”
All this come against a backdrop of months of unpaid salaries for employees as well as poor service delivery across its area of jurisdiction in its entirety.
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