CHARLES MUSONDA writes
@SunZambia
A POLICE officer, who was dismissed from employment following false allegations made against him by his former lover, has rejected her public apology published in one of the national dailies last week.
In this case, Superintendent Sylvester Shipolo, 48, was dismissed from the service in 2016 after his former lover Caroline Chimbeza made false allegations against him, leading to his dismissal over alleged absence without leave from employment while he was studying at the University of Zambia (UNZA).
According to Mr. Shipolo, a few years ago he was at UNZA pursuing his PhD in Gender Studies when he met Ms. Chimbeza, who was doing her Master’s Degree in Education, and the two fell in love.
He later discovered that Ms. Chimbeza was allegedly going out with a lecturer after which news of her infidelity spread throughout the Campus, forcing some students to protest against her conduct.
She then complained against him to the Dean of Students who later reported him to the police command. He was consequently expelled from UNZA and later dismissed from employment on allegations of absent without leave.
After a series of legal battles in which Mr. Shipolo sued Ms. Chimbeza and UNZA, on November 29, 2018 the parties entered a consent order before Lusaka High Court Judge Charles.
According to Mr. Justice Chanda, upon the matter being discontinued, Mr. Shipolo was entitled to have his status as a student of UNZA restored; and Ms. Chimbeza was ordered to make a public apology in a public newspaper to clear Mr. Shipolo.
However, Ms. Chmbeza’s lawyers from National Legal Aid Clinic for Women delayed to publish the apology, prompting Mr. Shipolo to complain that their delay was affecting the process of salvaging his job, which was disrupted implicitly by her deliberate misrepresentations.
“Which misrepresentations enabled formation of a cohort that masterminded a matrix, which led to wanton disruption of my academic progress and my job,” Mr. Shipolo complained.
Following publication of the story in the Sun last month, on February 11 and 12, 2019, the National Legal Aid Clinic for Women published the apology on Ms. Chimbeza’s behalf in the Zambia Daily Mail through a legal notice.
The notice read: “I, Caroline Chimbeza hereby and unreservedly apologise to Sylvester M. Shipolo for authoring a letter directed to the Assistant Dean of Students of the University of Zambia dated 14th July, 2015.
“The words contained in the said letter were disparaging and defamatory of the said Sylvester M. Shipolo and are deeply regretted and withdrawn.”
But Mr. Shipolo has rejected the apology on grounds that Ms. Chimbeza and the National Legal Aid Clinic for Women hid it in the legal notices section instead of the front page or any other outer page.
“They should have put it on the front page or any other outer page so that everyone can see that I was dismissed purely on falsehoods. I want my job back because I have suffered since 2016 when my salary was blocked after that unfair dismissal.
“I have rejected the apology tendered as a legal notice instead of a public apology written in the open space to be seen without difficulties other than in the classified space with small fonts making even colleagues who work at the same paper fail to see it.”
