The Industrial Relations Court (IRC) has ruled that employers have no right to forfeit unclaimed annual leave days of their employees unless such days are outstanding for over six years.
In a ruling dated April 25 2025, IRC vice-chairperson Tamanda Nyimba said a worker can only be stripped of his or her right to remuneration for accrued and duly earned leave days when the employee sits on his or her rights too long culminating in the claim for unutilised annual leave being statute barred at the time of termination of employment.
“Accordingly, the applicant is entitled to be remunerated for all earned and untaken annual leave not granted by the respondent [Malawi Housing Corporation-MHC] before the date of termination of employment,” he said in the determination made in Blantyre.
The determination followed an application by former MHC director of technical services Gladson Msyali who took his former employer to court over outstanding annual leave days.
In his claim, he said he was employed from April 2015 to March 2021 on two fixed-term contracts of three years each and was entitled to 216 leave days for his entire contract period. He, thus, asked the court to interpret whether an employee who earned leave days can have them forfeited.
Msyali argued that MHC forfeited his unclaimed annual leave days when he failed to go on leave due to pressure of work and that the corporation refused to pay him for the untaken annual leave days.
There was no immediate reaction from MHC on the matter before going to press yesterday.
