Matete Chacha Keboye vs National Micro Finance Bank P L C (Civil Appeal No. 1717 of 2025) [2026] TZCA 485 (4 May 2026)

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF TANZANIA AT MWANZA f CORAM: MWANPAMBO, J.A., KENTE, J.A. And MGONYA. J.A.^ CIVIL APPEAL NO. 1717 OF 2.025 MATETE CHACHA KEBOYE .................................. .................... APPELLANT VERSUS NATIONAL MICRO FINANCE BANK P LC ................................ RESPONDENT (Appeal from the decision of the High Court of Tanzania at Mwanza) LTLqanga_l.) dated the 10th day of March, 2021 in Labour Revision No. 21 of 2020 JUDGMENT OF THE COURT 21* April, & 4th May 2026 MWANPAMBO, J.A.: The appellant, Matete Chacha Keboye, appeals the decision of the High Court (Labour Division) sitting at Mwanza which set aside an award made earlier on in his favour by the Commission for Mediation and Arbitration ("the CMA") at Mwanza on 31 January 2020. Gleaned from the record of appeal, the facts from which the appeal has emanated are common cause. The appellant was, until his termination, an employee of the respondent. He had been employed by the respondent on 10 November 2010 as a Relationship Officer til! 18 July 2018 when his contract came to an end by termination allegedly for dishonesty; gross misconduct and gross negligence. Dissatisfied, he preferred a labour dispute complaint; Ref. No. CMA/MZ/FLEM/160/2018 before the CMA at Mwanza alleging unfair termination for which he sought restatement and payment of arrears of salaries. Alternatively, he asked for payment of terminal benefits. The respondent's case was that the termination was substantively and procedurally fair. In a bid to prove that the appellant's termination was fair, the respondent led both oral and documentary evidence, amongst others, a statement of the appellant he made at the police allegedly confessing to the offence (exhibit D6) and a statement of a witness by Hamis Ramadhan Wawa (exhibit D7). All the same, the CMA was not convinced that the respondent had discharged its burden proving existence of a valid reason for termination rendering it unfair both substantively and procedurally. Having found, the CMA awarded the appellant 12 months remuneration on the sum of TZS. 19,126,800.00 and ordered the respondent to issue to him a certificate of service. 2 The award aggrieved both the appellant and respondent. Each preferred a revision before the High Court which were consolidated and heard together as Consolidated Labour Revision No. 21 and 31 of 2020. Remarkably, whereas the respondent faulted the CMA for holding that it failed to discharge its burden that the termination was fair, the appellant criticized the award for failure to issue appropriate award having found that the termination was substantively unfair. He also faulted the CMA for finding the termination procedurally fair despite the fact that the chairman of the Disciplinary Committee was biased against the appellant. • In the end, the High Court disagreed with the CMA on the existence of valid reason for termination. On the contrary, relying on exhibits D6 and D7, the court found established that the appellant was guilty of the misconduct resulting into his termination in line with section 37 (1), (2) and (4) of the Employment and Labour Relations Act prior to its redesignation as section 38 (1), (2) and (4) vide Revised Edition 2023 of the Laws need together with rule 12 (1), (2), (3) and (4) of the Employment and Labour Relations (Code of Good Practice) Rules, G.N. No. 42 of 2007. Upon that finding, the court concluded that the respondent had sufficiently discharged its burden proving, on balance of probability, existence of a valid reason for termination. It thus revised the award and set it aside and substituting it with an order dismissing the appellant's complaint on unfair termination. Not amused, the appellant was aggrieved by the decision of the High Court. He has preferred this appeal on four grounds of appeal faulting the court for: "(1) Relying on documents which were not properly and legally tendered and admitted as evidence at the CMA; (2) failure to pronounce itself whether the appellant's termination was on a fair procedure; (3) holding that the appellant's termination was based on valid reasons; and, (4) failure to hold that the respondent failed to prove that termination was fair per the requirement o f the iaw . " Closely examined, the grounds boil down to only one issue on the correctness of the finding of the High Court that the appellant's termination was fair. In our view, the complaint in the 1st and 2n d grounds, are, but offshoots of the main complaint in the 3rd ground whereas the 4th ground appears to be a repetition of the 3rd ground in different words. Indeed, Mr. Elias Rachuonyo Hezron, learned advocate who represented the appellant at the hearing, conceded as such. He made no argument on it. From the scheme of things, the main issue in the appeal is, according to Mr. Hezron, supported by the argument in the 1st ground, that is, erroneous reliance on exhibits D6 and D7 in arriving at the conclusion that the respondent discharged its burden cast upon it by section 40 of the Act that the appellant's termination was upon a valid reason and fair procedure. • In a nutshell, Mr. Hezron contended that, apart from exhibits D6 and D7 relied upon by the High Court in finding that the respondent had valid reason for terminating the appellant, there was no other evidence to prove the case. Counsel pointed out that, notwithstanding the appellant's objections to the admissibility of exhibits D6 and D7, the arbitrator overruled them instantly and admitted the said documents and deferred reasons for the admission to be incorporated in the award. Nevertheless, he submitted, no such reasons are reflected in the award regardless of the fact that the CMA made no reference to the impugned exhibits. Counsel took the view that, in so far as the reasons behind the admission of the exhibits objected to by the appellant were not incorporated in the award. Without such reasons, he submitted, the award was incomplete and thus the learned judge strayed into error In relying on the irregularly admitted documents in his judgment. He relied on the Courts decision in Crescent Impex Tanzania Limited v. Mtibwa Sugar Estates Ltd [2023] TZCA 17501 for the proposition that, annexures not admitted into evidence cannot be relied upon in determining a case. According to Mr. Hezron, had the High Court directed its mind properly to what transpired before the CMA, it should not have relied on exhibits D6 and D7 as it did. Instead, it should have found that the omission to incorporate the reasons for overruling the objections to the admissibility of the impugned exhibits was a fundamental error which rendered the award a nullity. Had it done so, it was argued, it ought to have invoked its power under rule 28 (1) of the Labour Court Rules and nullified the award regardless of the fact that none of the parties had complained against it on that ground. Going forward, the learned advocate invited the Court to exercise its revisional power under section 6 (2) of the Appellate Jurisdiction Act (the AJA) by quashing the CMA's award for being a nullity and directing it to compose a fresh award according to law. 6 For his part, Dr. George Mwaisondola, learned advocate who represented the respondent was insistent that the appeal had no merit and urged the Court to dismiss it. According to him, the impugned exhibits were properly admitted and the appellant exercised his right to cross-examine the respondent's witness on them. Besides, counsel contended, neither did the arbitrator rely on it in the award nor did the appellant make any complaint against the CMA's omission to incorporate its reasons for overruling the objections. He submitted further that, irrespective of the irregular reliance upon exhibits D6 and D7 by the High Court, there was sufficient evidence proving existence of valid reason for the appellant's termination and therefore, there was no cause for the Court invoking the revisional power for the nullification of the award. In his brief rejoinder, Mr. Hezron stressed that, regardless of the appellant's exercise of his right to cross examine the respondent's witnesses, that did not absolve the CMA's duty to incorporate reasons for overruling the objection to the admission of the impugned exhibits. Having heard the submissions by the learned counsel and examined the record, it is not in dispute that, contrary to its indication at pages 374 and 375 of the record of appeal, the CMA did not give its 7 reasons for overruling the appellant's objection to the admissibility of the statements made at the police (exhibit D6) as well as the document titled statement of witness made at the police by Hamis Ramadhan Wawa (exhibit D7). It is pertinent that, unlike exhibit D6 shown to have been made by the appellant, the maker of exhibit D7 was not called as a witness. The statement is shown to have been recorded under section 34B of the Evidence Act. Admittedly, the CMA did not make reference to exhibits D6 and D7 in the award in which it found the respondent without any valid reason for termination. Ordinarily, it was expected that the CMA could have subjected the entire evidence to scrutiny in its award before making a finding either way. It did not do so. Instead, notwithstanding the fact that the respondent relied on, amongst others, exhibits D6 and D7 in proving existence of a valid reason for termination, the CMA said nothing in relation to the said exhibits either rejecting them for lack of evidential value or for any other reason. In our view, that was fatal to the CMA's award as it was prejudicial to the appellant and the respondent as well. On the one hand, the appellant was deprived of his right to know the reasons for overruling his objection to the admission of the documents and exercise his right to challenge such reason by way of 3 revision before the High Court. On the other hand, the failure for not stating why it did not act on the respondent's evidence by way of exhibits D6 and D7 meant to prove existence of a valid reason for the appellant's termination from employment was prejudicial to its case. It denied the respondent a full hearing. Nevertheless, the High Court relied on the impugned exhibits to conclude that the termination was with valid reason resulting into setting aside the award in a decision now challenged in this appeal. It is instructive that rule 27 of the Labour Institutions (Mediation and Arbitration) Rules, G.N. NO. 67 of 2.007 enjoins the arbitrator to compose a concise award containing, amongst others, reason for the decision. There is no dearth of authority on the duty to give reason by public authorities vested with statutory power to make decisions exemplified by decided cases, remarkably, Joseph M. Mutashobya v. M/s Kibo Match Group Limited [2004] TL.R 242, Tanzania Air Services Limited v. Minister for Labour, Attorney General & The Commissioner for Labour [1996] T.L.R 217 and Ikindila Wigae v. Republic [2005] TL.R 365. In the latter decision, the Court stressed: "It cannot be doubted that reasons enhance public confidence in the decision-making process. I f a judge or magistrate were to decide a matter before him by tossing a coin, it is quite possibie that his decision would be correct, but neither a lawyer nor a layman would regard it as being acceptable. The decision would be unacceptable on the ground o f irrationality. Although compliance with the requirement o f giving reasons cannot protect parties against all wrong decisions, for the reasons very' ably given by the distinguished authors in the passages we have quoted above, the importance o f the right to reasons cannot be over-emphasized. A party to a court proceeding is perfectly entitled to tell the judge: "My Lord, make your decision, but let me know the reason or reasons for it " In the instant case no reasons for learnedjudge's decision were discernible on record. This irregularity- was, in our opinion, another ground for faulting the learned judge's decision. "[ at page 370] From the foregoing exposition, we think there can hardly be any doubt that, contrary to the argument by the respondent's learned counsel, the CMA's decision was rendered incomplete and irrational by reason of the failure to incorporate reasons behind overruling the appellant's objection to the admissibility of the impugned exhibits D6 and D7. Similarly, the award lacked rationality on account of the 10 Arbitrator's failure to subjecting the entire evidence to scrutiny before reaching the conclusion that the respondent had no valid reason for termination. It will be recalled that, in Labour Revision No. 21 of 2020, the respondent moved the High Court to vacate the impugned award for being improper, irrational and incorrect. Section 92(2) (c) of the Act vests power in the Labour Court to set aside awards made by the CMA for being unlawful, illogical or irrational. Despite the glaring incompleteness in the impugned award, the High Court glossed over and proceeded to determine the applications for revision on merit. Had it directed its mind to the proceedings and the resultant award, it could have not proceeded the way it did. It could, on the contrary, have set aside the award and directed the CMA to compose a fresh award in accordance with the law. In the upshot of the foregoing, we are constrained to exercise the Court's revisional power under section 6(2) of the AJA and vacate the award in CMA/MZ/ILEM/160/2018 made on 31 January' 2020 for being a nullity. It follows thus that there could not have been any valid proceedings and the resultant decision of the High Court from a nullity. We likewise quash the proceedings in the High Court and set aside the judgment from which this appeal has emanated. Going forward, we order the record be remitted to the CMA for it to compose a fresh award expeditiously by the same arbitrator in accordance with the law. Considering the circumstances leading to the decision we have just made and, as conceded by Mr. Hezron, we make no order as to costs. Order accordingly. DATED at MWANZA this 1s t day of May, 2026. L. J. S. MWANDAMBO JUSTICE OF APPEAL P. M. KENTE JUSTICE OF APPEAL L. E. MGONYA J USTICE OF APPEAL judgment delivered this 4th day of May, 2026 in the presence of Mr. Elias Rachuonyo Hezron, learned counsel for the appellant who also held brief for Dr. George Mwaisondola, learned counsel for the respondent and Mr. John Banene, Court Clerk; is hereby certified as a true copy of the original. A. L. KALEG'EYA DEPUTY REGISTRAR COURT OF APPEAL 12