IN THE
INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS COURT OF MALAWI

LILONGWE
REGISTRY

MATTER NO. 33
OF 2001

BETWEEN:

FRANK S.
CHANDILIRA…………………………………APPLICANT

-and-

SISTER
ANGELA………………………..………………RESPONDENT

CORAM: 

HON. M.C.C.
MKANDAWIRE, CHAIRMAN

Applicant – Present

Respondent –
Present

George Chapalapata –
Official Interpreter

J U D G M E N T

Matters in
Issue: Withholding payment of K17,000.00

BACKGROUND

The Applicant Frank
Chandilira brought up this matter against the Respondent Sister
Angella on a trade dispute of withholding payment
of K17,000.00. The
Respondent denied the allegation saying that as a result of the
Applicant’s conduct, she had paid the balance
of K17,000.00 to the
people who had finished the job.

EVIDENCE

The Applicant had
been employed or contracted to by the Respondent to build a house for
the village headman where the Respondent is
operating missionary
work. The total contract amount was K30,000.00 The Applicant
commenced the work with his own labour force. At
the time the
Applicant won this job, he was actually foreman for Brother
Construction Company who were constructing a school at that
same
place. It would appear that the part time job with the Respondent did
not go down well with the Applicant’s principal employers
Brother
Construction. As such, the Applicant’s employment with Brother
Construction was terminated. At the time this termination
was done,
the Applicant had constructed the village headman’s house up to
roofing level. It is the evidence from the Applicant
that he
temporarily left the site for his home due to problems he had
experienced with Brother Construction. He however left a captain
at
the site and he was coming during weekends to check the situation. He
told the Court that before he lost his job, he had received
K13,000.00 from the Respondent as part payment. He was however amazed
that when the whole house was over, he could not be given the
balance
of K17,000.00 because it was disclosed to him that the balance had
been given to the workforce on the site.

The evidence from
the sister was that after the Applicant had lost his job with Brother
Construction, he disappeared from the scene.
His workers were about
to abandon the project since they had not received money from him
since the project started. The Respondent
said that she did not want
the project to fail and promised them that if they finished the work,
she would pay them the balance of
K17,000.00 since the Applicant had
already collected K13,000.00. That she did.

There were several
witnesses six of them from the Respondent’s side who said that the
Applicant had abandoned them after roofing
level. They said that they
did the plastering, flooring and pointing on their own. These
witnesses said that since August 2001 to
October 2001, the Applicant
had not paid them money. One of them said that since the project
started in August 2001, all he got from
the Applicant was K200.00.

The village headman
who said that he was very interested in the project since the house
was his, said that on several occasions, he
heard complaints from the
workers that the Applicant was no where to be seen. He said that he
personally used to visit the site and
found that the Applicant had
abandoned his workers at roofing level. The rest of the work was done
by the workers on their own.

From the Applicant’s
side, there were two witnesses one of the witness told the Court that
he was left on site as the supervisor
when the Applicant had lost his
job with Brother Construction. He said that the Applicant used to
visit them regularly during weekends.
He said that he was however
amazed to hear that people had received their cash directly from the
Sister a thing he did not follow
and understand how it happened.

The other
Applicant’s witness said that since employed by the Applicant, he
has been on site from foundation up to the time the
house finished.
He said that later on the Applicant vanished and they worked on their
own. It later on transpired that the Sister
arranged that they should
be paid directly by her. He said that he was warned by his friends
not to disclose to anyone. Since the
Applicant had only paid him
K200.00 he said that he also got his money from the Sister. He could
however not tell the Court how much
his wages were. He confessed that
he was working blindly.

ANALYSIS

From the evidence on
record, the Court was satisfied that after roofing level, the
Applicant vanished from the scene. The workers
finished the work on
their own. It is also clear from the evidence that although the
Applicant had collected K13,000.00 from the
Sister, he did not pay
most of his workers. For example, how could a person who has been on
the project from August to October only
have received K200.00? This
was total exploitation. I find that the workers who were left on the
site did the rest of the job on
their own. The Court takes judicial
notice of the fact that it is very easy to bring about walls for a
house. But it is very difficult
to do plastering, flooring and
finishing like pointing. I also take into account that there were
several people that the Applicant
had not paid although he had
collected K13,000.00.

FINDING

I see nothing wrong
for the Sister having rescued the workers who had dedicated
themselves to the project. Moreover, may be this was
a blessing in
disguise. If the Applicant could not pay his servants from August to
October, one would not be amazed if some of them
would have totally
received nothing had the balance of K17,000.00 again found its way to
the hand of the Applicant. I think the Applicant
is to blame. His
vanishing from the project confused a lot of things and the Sister
had no option. After all, she gave the money
to the right people. I
had doubts with the man he brought to the Court who claimed to have
been his supervisor. If he was really
on site, he could not have been
ignorant of the events on the ground especially when the Sister was
paying all these people. I therefore
dismiss this matter.

MADE this -------
day of May 2002 at Lilongwe Industrial Relations Court.

M.C.C. Mkandawire

HON. CHAIRMAN