KDF soldiers in a dress rehearsal parade during the 60th Madaraka day national celebrations at Moi stadium in Embu on June 1, 2023. PHOTO | JOSEPH KANYI | NMG
The High Court has awarded the former head of the Intensive Care Unit and Medical Verification Officer at the Armed Forces Memorial Hospital nearly Sh7.26 million for wrongful dismissal from the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF).
Laban Nyambok, who held the rank of a Major before being court-martialled, will be entitled to Sh4 million in compensatory damages for unlawful dismissal and Sh3.11 million half salary that KDF withheld for 36 months he was tried.
He has also been awarded a Sh146,000 medical risk allowance in addition to “pension and gratuity, as he would have been paid on normal retirement”, according to the ruling.
“It is declared that the first respondent [KDF] violated the claimant’s constitutional rights, particularly under Articles 41, 47 and 50 of the Constitution, and termination of service/dismissal was unfair, unlawful and unconstitutional,” Justice James Rika ordered.
The determination ends Mr Nyambok’s eight-year legal battle with KDF, his former employer, pending any appeal that may arise.
The court heard that Mr Nyambok’s trouble started in 2015 when he was court-martialled for four offences, including conduct to prejudice of good order and service discipline and neglect of duty.
In his role at the hospital where he last earned a gross pay of Sh254,102, he verified medical claims under the Defence Forces Medical Insurance Scheme.
Mr Nyambok was alleged to have approved payment for the inpatient hospitalisation of a Ms Naomi Mwalale at Tahidi Nursing Home and a Mr Abdinassir Juma at Waso Medical and Nursing Home without admission authorisation.
The military court in 2018 found him guilty of offence prejudice of good order and service discipline for receiving Sh370,000 from Tahidi Nursing Home, Mwingi, in “clearance of fictitious bills”.
Mr Nyambok, who joined the military as a cadet officer in 1991, was sentenced to serve one-year imprisonment after being convicted of neglect of duty.
The former KDF officer appealed the sentence at the High Court, which quashed the decision of the Court Martial in its entirety in June 2020.
In its ruling in 2020, the court found that KDF did not produce evidence of a meeting by the Defence Council that dismissed the employee and they did not issue him with a dismissal letter.
The KDF, however, declined to reinstate, redeploy or retire him with benefits.
Mr Nyambok, 58, went back to the High Court in February 2021 seeking a declaration as an employee of the KDF, payment of Sh7.88 million salary arrears from June 2018 and Sh3.28 million half monthly salary withheld between April 2015 and May 2018 when he was being tried by a military court.
He also sought Sh146,000 in half risk allowance and that in the alternative KDF should retire him with full benefits and pay him a year’s salary for illegal and unlawful retirement.
