Employee suspended for smelling of alcohol at workplace

I am employed by a manufacturing company as a cyber security officer and have worked here for five years before I was suspended pending investigation of a misconduct which our HR Manager termed as smelling of alcohol at a workplace. It is true that the night before the day I was accused I consumed alcohol up to midnight. However, I was able to get to the workplace on time and able to discharge my duties as usual. Please guide me if in the employment laws there is a misconduct called smelling of alcohol at a workplace and if such misconduct may lead to termination of employment?
IS, Iringa

Under the employment laws there is no offence called smelling of alcohol at a workplace as your HR Manager might have put it. The employment offence related to consumption of alcohol is called being under influence of alcohol at a workplace. This offence is created under the Employment and Labour Relations (Code of Good Practice) Rules, 2007 and rule 13 of the Occupational Safety and Health (General Administrative) Rules, 2015.

The employment laws treat this offence as a serious offence whose commission may lead to termination from employment irrespective of the fact that it is a first offence. However, when the employer exercises his discretion to terminate the employee for such a misconduct, especially when it is a first offence, he is obliged to consider whether the misconduct makes the continued employment relationship intolerable. The intolerability of the work relationship depends on the peculiar circumstance of the case. There is no hard and fast rule as to under what circumstance being under influence of alcohol at a workplace makes the work relationship intolerable and in what circumstance it does not. Some of the factors the employer may consider when deciding to terminate an employer for being under influence of alcohol at a workplace is the nature of the job, health and safety dangers to which the employee exposed other workers and himself by being under influence of alcohol.

The law does not define the amount of alcohol consumption that warrants concluding that a person is under influence of alcohol or not. Under the traffic law, which does not apply in employment disputes, the prescribed limit of alcohol for the purpose of driving is eighty milligrams of alcohol in one hundred milliliters of blood. In employment matters the employer may use the same threshold and may use alcometer or breath-test to ascertain whether the employee is under the influence of alcohol or not. Hence smelling of alcohol may be used as a proof of being under influence of alcohol but is not the conclusive test. The employer may also infer the influence of alcohol from the conduct of the employee and the words uttered at the workplace to conclude that the employee was under influence of alcohol.

Application of the Anti-Money Money Laundering Laws in Zanzibar

I am an expatriate working in Zanzibar and have a cheque drawn in my favour by my employer which I want to take with me to my home country. Ive been told that there are Regulations made by the Union Minister for Finance which bars cross border movement of cash and negotiable instruments whose value is equivalent to USD 10,000 or more unless the bearer declares the instrument to the customs officer before departure. Do the Regulations apply in Zanzibar? 
PK, Unguja

Zanzibar has its own anti-money laundering laws. Regulation 3 of the Mainland regulations the Anti-Money Laundering (Cross Border Declaration of Currency and Negotiable Instruments) Regulations, 2016 clearly excludes physical movement of cash or negotiable instruments from or to Zanzibar from the ambit of the Regulations. The Regulations are exclusively applicable in Mainland Tanzania only. The regulations that will apply are Zanzibar regulations which you will have to check.

For your information, even the Anti-Money Laundering Act of Mainland Tanzania is applicable to Zanzibar only in respect of the establishment of the FIU, and other anti-money laundering institutions. The provisions regulating anti-money laundering offences do not apply in Zanzibar.

Trade Union demands free clean drinking water

We are currently negotiating a collective bargaining agreement with a trade union. Two of the items they want to be inserted in the agreement are free drinking water to all the employees and classic new style washrooms which we find to be expensive for the company to bear. We would like to get your views if these demands have any legal backup.
SH, Moshi

The Occupational Safety and Health (First Aid and Welfare Facilities) Rules, 2015 imposes an obligation on the employer to provide the employees with a lot of welfare facilities at a workplace. Rule 12 of the said Rules obligates the employer to supply the employees with adequate safe and clean drinking water at the workplace. The employer should ensure the employees have adequate cups when drinking water from coolers or containers and not allow the use of shared cups.

Rule 7 imposes an obligation on the employer to provide the employees with sanitary facilities at the workplace. To mention a few, the employer is bound to provide the employees with: (a) water or toilet paper; (b) water closet pan designed to have a seat, with a seat cover; (c) sanitary towel disposal bins for female employees; (d) toilet soap or similar cleansing agent; (e) running hot and cold water or premixed hot and cold water for the washbasins in the cold areas.

The washrooms should have signs outside the entrance indicating the sex of the persons for whom the room is intended. Every washroom should be naturally or artificially ventilated to allow the outside air to hit directly. These requirements might look expensive to the employer but they are statutory. In your case we are not sure what classic new style washrooms means, but normal washrooms as stated above must be provided. The trade union seems to want the obligation to be in the collective bargaining agreement for them to be able to enforce directly.