Q&A – 12 April 2021

Suspect statement by foreign agent

Our accountant, who is foreigner stole, our company’s money and fled to his home country. He was arrested there by the international police. After the arrest, he made a suspect statement to a police officer who is a citizen of his home country and he confessed stealing the company’s money. We would like to know if under the laws of Tanzania, a confession statement of a suspect recorded in a foreign country by a foreign law enforcement agent can be admitted in Tanzanian Courts.
NK, Dar

Ordinarily a suspect statement made to a police officer is admissible under section 27(1) of the Evidence Act if he/she voluntarily implicates himself or herself with the crime he or she is accused of, which seems to be the case here. Section 57 and 58 of the Criminal Procedure Act prescribes the procedure to be applied by a police officer when recording a suspect statement. However, both laws recognise police officers who are members of the Tanzania Police Force only. Police officers who are members of law enforcement agents in other foreign jurisdictions are not recognised by both the Evidence Act and Criminal Procedure Act as police officers capable of recording a suspect statement under section 27(1) of the Evidence Act and section 57 and 58 the Criminal Procedure Act.

Admission of a suspect statement recorded in a foreign jurisdiction by foreign police officers can be admitted under section 38 of the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act [Cap. 254 R.E 2019] not as a confessional statement made to a police officer but as evidence obtained from a foreign country. For that suspect statement to be admitted under section 38 as evidence from a foreign country, it must first be signed by a police officer who wrote it and authenticated by oath of such police officer.

Working on a public holiday

I am employed as a driver assigned to drive the managing director of our company. Recently I worked on a day that was declared a public holiday by the President. Am I entitled to be paid an allowance for working on a public holiday? Kindly guide.
FG, Dodoma

According to section 25 of the Employment and Labour Relations Act [Cap.366 R.E 366 R.E 2019], when an employee works on a public holiday specified in the Public Holidays Act, the employer should pay the employee double the employee’s basic wage for each hour worked on that day. Public holidays are specified in the Schedule to the Public Holidays Act.

However, section 3 of the Public Holidays Act gives the President power to declare any date to be a public holiday. A day declared by the President to be a public holiday is treated like the days listed in the Schedule to the Public Holidays Act. Since the President declared the date you worked on to be a public holiday, any employee who worked on that day on the instruction of the employer is entitled to double basic wage for each hour worked on that day. This double basic wage paid that you are entitled to be paid is subject to statutory deductions like pension and tax amongst others.

Entitlement of compassionate leave in a leave cycle

I lost my two grandparents within a span of two months. I asked our HR Manager to give me a compassionate leave to attend the burial of my grandparent who died in January, 2021. I was granted 4 days, In February my second grandparent also died. I asked for another compassionate leave but the HR Manager told me that I have exhausted my compassionate leave for the year 2021 leave cycle and was asked to take unpaid leave otherwise my second compassionate leave will be deducted from my annual leave or other leaves due to me in the 2021 leave cycle. I believe the law does not support what the HR manager told me and would like to know if the law limits a total number of days of compassionate leave an employee is allowed to take.
JJ, Dar

The law prescribes the total number of days of paid compassionate leave the employee is entitled in a leave cycle. Under section 34(1)(b)(ii)(b) of the Employment and Labour Relations Act [Cap. 366 R.E 2019], the employee is entitled to a total number of four days of paid compassionate leave in a leave cycle for the death of an employee’s, child, spouse, parent, grandparent, grandchild or sibling. According to section 34(3)(b) of the Employment and Labour Relations Act, four days of paid compassionate leave are the total number of days to which the employee is entitled as a right irrespective of how many such relatives die in a leave cycle. After exhausting the four days of paid compassionate leave, the employer has the discretion to give the employee more days of compassionate leave with or without conditions of deducting the extra days from the employee’s other leaves due in a leave cycle, or by giving the employee extra days of compassionate leave on condition that the extra days shall be unpaid.

Since you had already taken the 4 days of paid compassionate leave, unfortunately you had no right to claim another paid compassionate leave for the death of your second grandparent or death of any other relative mentioned under the law. The HR manager was thus right in the guidance you were given.