Tanganda Tea Estates has lost at least US$300 000 in potential revenue.

GROSS incompetence resulted in agro-processing firm, Tanganda Tea Estates, losing at least US$300 000 in potential revenue after one of its directors planted macadamia tree seedlings without first grafting them as recommended.
In addition to his incompetence, Michael Henry Browne, a director in the company to whom all estates managers reported, was also in the habit of indulging in sexual activities with lower level female employees, acts of misconduct that resulted in his dismissal in November 2011 after a disciplinary hearing, according to court papers.
Browne joined Tanganda Tea Estates in 1997 as a coffee estates manager before being promoted to agriculture manager in 2000, then to the position of general manager (agriculture) in 2007 before being elevated to a director in 2010.
Throughout his employment by the firm, Browne was based in Chipinge where he was responsible for the company’s various estates.
In 2007, the company took delivery of macadamia seedlings with recommendations from the supplier that the saplings be grafted first before being planted. But Browne disregarded the advice, and proceeded to plant 35 hectares of the fruit tree without following the procedures.
The tree is a commercial plant grown for its fruit, the macadamia nut, a healthy and delicious crop that has anti-oxidants and reduces cholesterol, while it is also used to make expensive hair shampoo.
It was only in 2010, when Tanganda hired some experts to assess its plantations that it was discovered that the macadamia crop was not thriving and the problem was traced back to the fact that the seedlings had been planted without grafting.
From their assessment of the crop — which matures after five years — the experts indicated that the company was going to suffer a loss of at least US$300 000 because of the poor yields from the 35 hectares on which proper farming methods had not been followed.
At the same time, information reached the company’s head office in Harare that Browne was in the habit of engaging in sexual liaisons with lower level female workers at the company’s plantations in Chipinge.
This resulted in him being charged with contravening some sections of the company’s employment code of conduct. In particular, he was charged with gross incompetence and negligence in the performance of his work, and violating Tanganda’s anti-sexual harassment policy. In the latter respect, Browne was accused of having improper relations with two junior members of staff, although only one of the cases was fully investigated.
The disciplinary committee found him guilty on both charges and he was subsequently dismissed.
After an unsuccessful internal appeal, Browne took his case to the Labour Court, which upheld the committee’s dismissal. This resulted in him taking his fight to the Supreme Court where he also got no joy after the last court in the land concluded that he had been rightly dismissed.
Farming experts who testified during his disciplinary hearing had revealed that because of the way the macadamia were planted, some of the plants were unlikely to have any produce at all, while those that would produce, would give an average yield.
In the sexual mischief case, one of the workers, Eulater Makuyana, testified before the disciplinary committee that she had had an affair with Browne for three years, and this was corroborated by his cook and by another company employee.
Browne’s Supreme Court appeal was based on the composition of the disciplinary committee and his claim that both charges against him had been prescribed since they were raised against him more than three years after he had committed them.
Justice Elizabeth Gwaunza, who heard the appeal together with Justices Vernanda Ziyambi and Bharat Patel concurred with the Labour Court, which had dismissed the argument on the composition of the disciplinary committee and went on to rule that Browne’s seniors in Harare had only gotten to know of his mischief in 2010 and when they acted on it in 2011, three years had not lapsed, therefore he could not plead prescription.
“I have already determined that the appellant, who held the most senior position on the estates in question, was in the circumstances of this case, properly found guilty of the misconduct charges that he faced. That being the case, I am not persuaded that there was any misdirection or unreasonableness in the exercise of the respondent’s discretion in imposing the penalty of dismissal,” Justice Gwaunza wrote in a judgment that her colleagues agreed with.

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