Africa-Press – Uganda. The labor office in Tororo District has arbitrated a case in which a Tororo based transport company terminated a Bangladesh man without notice, directing the firm to pay the complainant Shs68million as terminal benefits.
Bangladeshi Mohamed Jillur Rohman had reportedly resorted to street begging to earn a living after he was reportedly fired despite the fact that he had been recruited amongst experts to give technical guidance to Yalfa Logistics Uganda Limited in 2015.
According to the Tororo District labor officer Jorem Onyango, Jillur was assigned to head the workshop section where he worked for over five years before he was later sacked without notice, prompting him to file his complaint with authorities.
Onyango says that Jillur also told the district labour office that his passport had been confiscated- thereby advising him to engage police since his office does not have the jurisdiction to handle criminal cases.
“This office has directed the company to pay Shs68million to Jillur .We computed his monthly savings where the company was making deductions of Shs1million as his savings that he would be paid in case of termination of his assignment,” Onyango told Monitor.
Onyango also said during the arbitration process, his office discovered that the termination had no grounds although the “new management claimed that the company was trying to reduce on the workforce.”
“Reduction of workforce is none of the business to the labor office but termination notices would have been issued to the workers to be affected and above all the company has to pay their terminal benefits,” he emphasized.
Documents seen by this reporter show that Jillur was appointed at a net pay of Shs2.5million, with Shs1.5 million payable monthly to him in cash while the remainder was to be kept by the company- to be given to him full on his pursuit to leave the company or in case of termination of his assignment.
Jillur claims that even after arbitration of the matter, the company has not honored the agreement, rendering him a helpless beggar on streets in attempts to raise fees for his four children, and meet other essential needs.
“I’m only asking the company to release my passport and my terminal benefits as stipulated in my appointment letter,” he demanded on Saturday.
Jillur told this publication that he was terminated in 2020 by the new management after the death of the company director Inderjit Gill.
Jillur adds that before Gill’s death, the management had asked them to surrender their passports to help process work permits.
“I cannot move anywhere, including going back to my home country. I have lost my close family members but I cannot go to bury them because I don’t have travel documents and I cry for justice,” Jillur remarked.
When asked to comment on the matter, a senior manager at Yalfa Logistics Uganda Limited senior manager Ian Kadungulu told this reporter that their “lawyer has asked the company to halt the process of paying the said benefits not until scrutiny is done on the appointment.”
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