For Phatisani Sibanda, a three-year battle wasn’t just about a job—it was about proving that silence in the face of unfairness is not an option.
By Jonathan Mbiriyamveka
The voice that once guided listeners through morning traffic and afternoon news bulletins had been reduced to a tense, hopeful whisper in the corridors at Pockets Hill.
For three years, Phatisani Sibanda—the once-familiar radio presenter whose energy lit up ZBC airwaves—fought a silent war against the very broadcaster that made him a household name.
That war ended this week. I
n a landmark arbitration award that sent ripples through Zimbabwe’s media and labour circles, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation was ordered to reinstate Sibanda, its former producer and presenter, after a ruling that he was constructively dismissed—a legal term for when an employer makes working conditions so intolerable that the employee has no choice but to leave.
“When I walked out in December 2022, I didn’t know if I’d ever walk back in,” Sibanda says, holding a copy of the award like a hard-won certificate.
“But I knew I couldn’t stay in a place where I was suspended without pay, accused of things outside my job, and handed rules I couldn’t even read.”
At the heart of Sibanda’s case was a profound, yet simple, injustice: ZBC failed to provide him with a copy of its code of conduct in Shona or Ndebele, as required by law. The document—which outlined the rules he was accused of violating—existed only in English.
“How do you defend yourself against charges you don’t fully understand?” Sibanda asks, his broadcaster’s cadence returning as he speaks. “They said I broke rules. I said, ‘Show me the rules in a language that speaks to me.’ They never did.”
For months, Sibanda existed in professional limbo. Suspended twice, unpaid, and stripped of his microphone, he watched as his name faded from the daily schedule.
Listeners wondered where he’d gone. Colleagues whispered. The man who made a career from communication found himself utterly silenced.
“The hardest part wasn’t the financial strain—though that was real,” he shares. “It was the erasure. One day you’re someone people know. The next, you’re a rumour.”
Yet, in that silence, Sibanda found his resolve.
With the support of his legal team at Caleb Mucheche & Partners, he turned his personal grievance into a point of principle.
The case exposed not just a failure to translate a document, but a deeper disregard for fair process and dignity.
The arbitrator agreed. In a strongly worded award, she found that ZBC’s actions—withholding pay during suspension and denying Sibanda access to a translated code—constituted a fundamental breach of his employment contract and statutory rights. This, she ruled, made his continued employment “intolerable.”
“This wasn’t a resignation,” explains his lawyer, Caleb Mucheche. “This was a forced exit. The law calls it constructive dismissal. Most people call it injustice.”
The ruling orders ZBC to reinstate Sibanda with full back pay from December 2022—a sum that will be calculated in the coming weeks. If reinstatement is impractical, the corporation must pay damages in lieu.
For Sibanda, the victory is bittersweet.
It comes after years of uncertainty, freelance hustles, and the quiet anxiety of a public figure forced into the shadows.
“This award isn’t a cheque,” he says softly. “It’s an affirmation. It says, ‘You were right to stand up. You were right to demand fairness.’”
As for returning to ZBC, Sibanda is pragmatic, yet poetic.
“If I return, I return as the same presenter—but not the same man. I know my rights. I know my voice matters, on and off the air. And if I don’t return?” He smiles. “Then my next broadcast will be about how sometimes, you have to lose the microphone to find your voice.”
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