IN
THE LABOUR COURT OF LESOTHO

CASE
NO LC 74/00

HELD
AT MASERU

IN
THE MATTER OF:

SETUNGOANA
LETETE-LETSOELA APPLICANT

AND

LESOTHO
BANK RESPONDENT

JUDGMENT

This
is an application in which the applicant is seeking relief in the
following terms:

1. Declaring
   applicant’s dismissal unlawful and unfair.

   
   

2. Reinstating
   applicant.

   
   

3. Directing
   respondent to pay applicant arrears of salary from the date of the
   purported dismissal to the date of judgment.

   
   

4. Directing
   respondent to pay back applicant’s money regarding the interest of
   M10,000-00 she was directed to pay back by the
   respondent.

   
   

5. Directing
   respondent to pay costs of this application.

   
   

6. Granting
   applicant such further and/or alternative relief.

   
   

At
the hearing hereof Ms Mpopo for the applicant pointed out that they
were abandoning prayers (b) and (d). Under prayer (f) they
sought a
new relief that the court directs the respondent to pay applicant her
retrenchment package since as at the hearing of
this matter the
respondent had since been taken over by a new proprietor and all her
telling colleagues had been retrenched.

The
case arises out of the dismissal of the applicant on the 21^st
January 1999. The applicant challenged her dismissal in the High
Court. On the 7^th
June 2000 the applicant issued an Originating Application in this
court duly accompanied by an application for condonation of the
late
filing. At the hearing of this matter Mr. Matooane for the
respondent indicated that he was not opposing the condonation

application. Accordingly Ms Mpopo for the applicant moved that the
application be granted as prayed and it was accordingly granted.

The
applicants have not drawn the Originating Application strictly in the
manner set out in the rules of the court. In compliance
with rule
3(f) which requires that the Originating application must contain a
clear and concise statement of the material facts
on which the
applicant relies, they have attached their entire High Court papers,
which makes a fairly bulky record. However,
reading through the
record one comes out with about six grounds on which the applicant is
seeking relief. These are found in the
applicant’s founding
affidavit. However, at the hearing hereof the applicant gave oral
testimony in which she relied on just
one ground namely; that she was
discriminated against in that she was not the only teller with the
problem for which she was dismissed.
Even in the closing arguments
those other grounds were never alluded to. In the premises we can
safely assume that they have
been abandoned.

The
applicant was a teller at the respondent bank. Starting around June
1997 she incurred a cash imbalance which she says she could
not
trace. In testimony she says the difference which she says was a
surplus started at around M35,000-00. It accumulated until
it
reached M587,000-00 in September 1997. She testifies further that
she was not the only person with a cash imbalance. The problem
was
common among all tellers due to the newly installed computer system,
she testified.

This
may or may not be so, but it appears that the applicant’s imbalance
in particular was disturbing. In August 1997, she was
checked twice,
first by her supervisor and them by the internal auditors. They all
found a huge imbalance. This led the Branch
Manager to set up a
committee in September 1997, to investigate the applicant’s
difference. The committee finally submitted
a report with not
palatable news about the applicant. Key among the findings were that
she had never once balanced her cash ever
since she was a teller.
Her surpluses disappeared mysteriously. She doctors figures as a
result she cannot explain how her differences
occurred. She keeps
unprocessed vouchers for a long time without any reason why she did
not process them. She is unreliable,
untrustworthy, careless and
negligent and that she is not loyal to her work. There are many
more. The Team recommended her transfer
from cash department and
that she should be charged accordingly.

In
October 1997, when she returned from leave, she was relieved of her
normal telling duties in order to give her time to trace
the
difference she had accumulated. The applicant’s attitude has
always been that the difference is untraceable. It was her
view that
her difference was a surplus and it must according to procedure be
transferred to surplus in tellers’ cash account,
but this was never
done. This was however, not the view held by the Branch Manager. It
was as a result of that disagreement that
the Branch Manager refused
request for the difference to be transferred into surplus in Tellers’
Cash Account. He saw it as
a shortage. He stated as much in his
testimony before the disciplinary committee that he regarded
applicant’s cash imbalance
as a shortage. (see pages 14 and 17 of
the record of the disciplinary hearing.)

The
applicant called Mr. Sopeng who was the Regional Manager at the time
and who chaired what was called Branch Sweep A Team. By
agreement of
counsels which was endorsed by the court in terms of rule 11(1)(e) of
the Rules of the Court Mr. Sopeng submitted
a written statement of
his testimony which was handed in court by agreement of both counsels
that it constitutes his conclusive
and uncontroverted evidence.
According to the statement the Management of the Bank established the
A Team after it was realised
that the bank was not balancing its
books. The aim was that the Team goes around all the Branches,
suspend all imbalances discovered
and train tellers and branch
supervisors in balancing their cash. After the completion of the
assignment another Team would be
established to investigate the
suspended imbalances.

The
Branch Sweep A Team was duly established in February 1998. It went
around the Branches. It did suspend tellers’ imbalances
“...in
either deficiency or surplus in tellers cash as the case may be
pending establishment of another team which would look
for the
differences.” (see Sopeng’s testimony before the disciplinary
committee at p.17). According to the testimony of Mr.
Mapesela, the
Branch Manager at the Disciplinary Enquiry he was surprised to learn
at the time of the Branch Sweep Team that the
applicant was
balancing. When he enquired from the applicant’s supervisor he was
informed that the chairman of the A Team had
discovered the
applicant’s difference. When Mr. Mapesela called Mr. Sopeng to
find out how the problem was resolved the latter
“...revealed that
Mrs. Letsoela had produced an Inter-Teller Voucher for M600,000-00
from her handbag and after assisting her
to process this voucher she
had no more imbalance in her cash.” (P15 of the record of the
disciplinary hearing). At the disciplinary
hearing Mr. Sopeng
confirmed that when he got to the applicant the latter gave him a
voucher for M600,000-00 and said “....it
could not go through
because there was no sufficient cash in her cash drawer.” (At page
17).

Mr.
Sopeng went further to explain that he had created a vault which
would facilitate the processing of the M600,000-00 which could
not go
through. He said further that he treated the M600,000-00 extra
ordinarily because he had been given an impression that
the teller’s
balance had erroneously been deleted from the server. What turned
out to be the case was that the applicant had
approached another
teller so that they could create a fictitious Inter-Teller
transaction which would imply that there had been
exchange of cash
between them when no cash actually changed hands. (see evidence of
Khojane at p.7). She was charged with this
misdemeanor and several
others on the 22^nd
June 1998. There were infact fourteen charges preferred against her.
She was found guilty on ten charges and acquitted on only
four.

As
we indicated earlier, in testimony before this court the applicant
challenged only one charge and that is the one relating to
the
M600,000-00 imbalance. Her contention is that all other tellers’
imbalances were suspended except hers. Further more no
action was
subsequently taken against them. This she contends amounts to
discrimination.

We
are in full agreement with Mr. Matooane’s submission that the
Branch Sweep A Team was not meant to be an end of the imbalances.

Mr. Sopeng has said so in his statement handed in evidence as well as
before the disciplinary enquiry. Another Team would still
be set up
to investigate the imbalances. But as it is abundantly clear from
the record, the applicant is herself the cause of
the problem she
found herself in. Her imbalance was not suspended because she gave
the A Team the impression that hers was a special
problem of
information that had been accidentally deleted. She was as a result
found to be balancing. She was not charged with
failing to explain
the imbalance but with illegally, unprocedurally and fraudulently
raising and processing fictitious inter-teller
transactions for
M600,000-00, “....to enable you to process your unprocessed debit
vouchers.”

At
the hearing the applicant sought to show that it was normal to do the
transaction she did. However, all the Managers from those

constituting the panel to the Branch Manager and the Regional Manager
were adamant that there cannot be inter-teller transaction
which does
not involve physical cash. In our view therefore, this was a
misconduct and the applicant cannot complain when she
is disciplined
for it. For that matter it seems the fictitious transaction had only
been done by her and not the others in the
same boat as her. She
cannot therefore, call that discrimination.

We
have shown that the charges applicant faced were also as a result of
the investigations committee’s report that she should
be
disciplined. That report was made in January 1998 (see page 14 of
Mapesela’s testimony). There is no evidence that the A
Team was
intended to suspend even cases such as that of the applicant, which
were already clearly ready to be proceeded with.
In the absence of
such evidence the view that we hold is that even before February
1998, when the A Team was established applicant’s
disciplining was
already a foregone conclusion due to her apparent dishonesty.
Finally the applicant faced so many charges all
of which were
serious. Even if we were wrong in the findings we have made, her
success in this application would be academic in
as much as she would
not be capable of getting the reliefs sought in the light of those
other charges on which she has been found
guilty. In the premises we
are of the view that this application ought not to succeed. It is
accordingly dismissed. There is
no order as to costs.

THUS
DONE AT MASERU THIS 12TH DAY OF DECEMBER, 2001.

L.A
LETHOBANE

PRESIDENT

C.T.
POOPA

MEMBER I
AGREE

P.K.
LEROTHOLI

MEMBER I
AGREE

FOR
APPLICANT : MS MPOPO

FOR
RESPONDENT: MR. MATOOANE