Former Stanbic Bank Botswana Head of Business Bank Tapela Mpuchane has taken the bank to court claiming an unlawful termination of contract. The court papers on the case show that Mpuchane seeks to be paid more than 7 million pula in damages.
Advocate Tim Bruinders who is representing Mpuchane in the matter noted in court papers that there is bridging of contract that the two parties negotiated in March 2014 that Mpuchane accepted an offer of secondment to South Africa and that the Bank failed to provide the plaintiff with a written contract for a fixed 2 years on a swap basis.
Mpuchane’s post in Botswana was to be filled for the secondment period by an employee from within the Standard Bank Group. It has since emerged that Louis Van Ravensteyn has since taken over Mpuchane’s post. Also is that the payment of a full expatriate package including remuneration, benefits and allowances.
The defence attorney Tshiamo Rantao told the court in Gaborone that Stanbic Bank did not unlawfully terminate Mpuchane’s employment contract.
Rantao said that his client, being Stanbic Bank and Mpuchane did not agree on the terms and conditions of his project-based secondment to South Africa, he proposed that the employment contract be terminated because there was no longer trust between the two of them.
The employer then terminated the employment contract and paid him his severance benefits.
Stanbic Bank says that even if the termination is held by the court to be unlawful, Mpuchane would only be entitled to damages equivalent to one month salary as his indefinite period contract of employment provides for termination by one party giving the other one month notice without giving reasons.
