Herdsman sues police for breach of contract

Patricia Edwin | Thursday December 5, 2013 18:03

Before Justice Gaolapelwe Ketlogetswe, Montshini Raphathi said yesterday that when he was employed, his contract stated that he would be paid using A2 scale.

But the police did not honour the agreement because they started to pay him in the lower A3 scale.

Thus he is claiming P49,680 in back pay from 1999 up to 2012. He said that when he complained about the low pay, his employer, the Maun Police failed to address the matter.

“I complained about the scale and we went back and forth for a long time as they insisted that the scale was the correct one even though I also referred them to the contract that we signed together,” he submitted. 

He said the mistake he made was that when they were negotiating about the scale, he did not put anything in writing though he eventually went to the Department of Labour.

 “At Labour they told my employer that I should be paid according to the A2 scale that is written in the contract and also be given back pays.

“After that, the station commander said that I should go and bring pay slips so that my salary can be corrected.

“When I came back with the pay slips, he said that it was just a mistake and that they would not change my pay,” he said. He said that was when he made the decision to take the case to court.

Though the police have maintained that the insertion of A2 scale on the contract was a mistake, Raphathi refuses to concede, countering that if that was the case, it would have been rectified and he would been asked to sign a new contract bearing the correct scale.

The police, through state counsel Neo Sharp, replied that the A2 scale was a mistake because it does not exist in the government pay structure. Besides, it was prepared and signed by a District Administration Officer who did not have such powers.

Sharp said Raphathi did not suffer any prejudice because he has always been paid his correct salary.

“His salary has always been consistent and his lifestyle in terms of monetary terms will not change,” he said.

Justice Ketlogetswe did not hide the fact that he was unimpressed with the fact that “someone came and wrote at the top of the original contract and expected the court to accept that”. 

He demanded to know who wrote A3 at the top of the original contract and if the applicant was made aware of the changes and counter-signed. 

Judgment will be delivered in March next year. Raphathi started working for the police in 1997 but signed an employment contract in 1999.