Airtel failed to prove Angela Ilondanga’s job genuinely disappeared after restructuring, while defective notices breached mandatory redundancy safeguards. The Court of Appeal has now upheld her KSh1.6 million compensation award.
For Airtel Networks Kenya Limited, the case began with a restructuring exercise affecting dozens of positions.
For Angela Shukuru Ilondanga, it became an eight-year legal battle over how her career ended.
The Court of Appeal has now brought that dispute to a decisive close, dismissing Airtel’s appeal.
In a judgement delivered on September 25, 2026, three judges upheld her KSh1,596,096 compensation award.
The judges found Airtel had failed to prove that Ilondanga’s position genuinely disappeared after restructuring.
They also found that the company breached mandatory procedural requirements governing redundancy under Kenyan law.
Career Cut Short
Ilondanga joined Airtel on April 1, 2007, and steadily rose through the company’s ranks.
She eventually became an Express Shop Manager before her employment ended on January 15, 2016.
Airtel said her termination resulted from a wider restructuring programme affecting 63 positions.
The company said the exercise sought greater efficiency, lower operational costs, and changes to its retail operations.
According to Airtel, Ilondanga’s position was abolished as part of that restructuring.
The company maintained that her termination had nothing to do with misconduct or poor performance.
Instead, Airtel said her former functions were subsequently outsourced to another arrangement.
Ilondanga disputed that account and argued that redundancy was merely a pretext for termination.
She pointed to the Parkside Express Shop, where she had served as manager before leaving Airtel.
Her evidence showed that the shop continued operating after her termination.
She also identified Kennedy Oluoch as the person who later performed managerial duties there.
That evidence eventually became one of the most important features of the appeal.
Missing Contract
Airtel’s Human Resource Director, Irene Odera Kitinya, denied that Oluoch replaced Ilondanga.
She told the trial court that Oluoch was not an Airtel employee occupying Ilondanga’s former position.
Instead, she said he was connected to an outsourcing arrangement introduced after restructuring.
But Airtel faced a significant evidentiary problem when the dispute reached the appellate court.
The company did not produce the alleged outsourcing contract supporting that explanation.
The judges also examined an email dated February 25, 2016, concerning Oluoch.
The email described him as “Shop Manager at Parkside Shop Airtel Kenya”.
That description complicated Airtel’s assertion that Ilondanga’s managerial position had genuinely disappeared.
The Court of Appeal consequently held that Airtel “failed to prove that the appellant’s position was rendered redundant.”
The judges nevertheless made clear that employers retain considerable freedom to reorganise their businesses.
They cited earlier authority holding that courts should not substitute their commercial judgement for legitimate business decisions.
As the judgement stated, “The Court has no supervisory role” over an employer’s commercial restructuring choices.
But that freedom did not remove Airtel’s burden of proving that the particular job had genuinely vanished.
Notice Failure
The second major problem concerned how Airtel implemented the redundancy.
Section 40 of the Employment Act sets out mandatory safeguards before redundancy can take effect.
Airtel relied on a notice dated December 7, 2015, which the Ministry received two days later.
The company said that notice covered the 63 positions affected by its restructuring.
However, Ilondanga did not receive a prior redundancy notice before her employment ended.
Instead, she received her termination letter on January 15, 2016.
Airtel argued that sensitive customer information justified withholding advance notice from her.
The company maintained that advance warning could have created operational and customer-data concerns.
The courts rejected that explanation as insufficient to overcome statutory requirements.
The trial court also found that Airtel’s notice was addressed to the Ministry rather than the relevant labour officer.
It further found that the notice failed to state the intended effective redundancy date.
The Court of Appeal agreed, describing procedural fairness as “a vital aspect of redundancy”.
The judges therefore concluded that Airtel had failed to satisfy the statutory requirements governing the termination.
The problem was not merely technical, because redundancy safeguards provide employees an opportunity to respond.
They also allow affected workers to explore alternatives before their employment ultimately ends.
Award Stands
Airtel’s final challenge targeted the KSh1,596,096 compensation awarded by the trial court.
The amount represented 12 months’ salary, the maximum compensation permitted under section 49.
Airtel argued that the award was excessive and overlooked payments already made to Ilondanga.
The company pointed to terminal benefits and an ex gratia payment equivalent to one month’s salary.
The Court of Appeal nevertheless found no reason to disturb the trial judge’s discretion.
The judges noted that Ilondanga had served Airtel for more than eight years.
She had also earned promotions and maintained a clean employment record during her service.
Her termination was abrupt, while she still had an outstanding staff loan exceeding KSh711,000.
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The trial court considered those circumstances before granting the maximum statutory compensation.
The appellate judges found that the trial court had properly applied the relevant legal principles.
They concluded that Airtel had not demonstrated any basis for appellate intervention.
The Court consequently dismissed the appeal in its entirety and awarded Ilondanga costs.
The ruling leaves an important lesson for employers undertaking restructuring.
Companies retain the right to reorganise, outsource functions, and eliminate positions for legitimate business reasons.
However, they must prove that affected positions genuinely disappeared and follow the statutory redundancy process.
In Ilondanga’s case, Airtel failed to establish the first requirement and breached the second.
After years of litigation, the KSh1.6 million compensation award therefore remains intact.
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