Summary dismissal
An employer has the right to terminate a contract of service without notice or with less notice than that to which the employee is entitled by any statutory provision or contractual term where such employee is deemed to have fundamentally breached his obligations arising under the contract of service.

Termination on account of redundancy
The Employment Act defines redundancy to means, the loss of employment, occupation, job, or career by involuntary means through no fault of an employee, involving termination of employment at the initiative of the employer, where the services of an employee are superfluous and the practices commonly known as abolition of office, job or occupation and loss of employment.

For a termination on account of redundancy to be lawful, an employer has to ensure that he complies with the requirements of section 40 of the Employment Act, which are as follows;

An employer shall not terminate a contract of service on account of redundancy unless the employer complies with the following conditions—

• where the employee is a member of a trade union, the employer notifies the union to which the employee is a member and the labour officer in charge of the area where the employee is employed of the reasons for, and the extent of, the intended redundancy not less than a month before the date of the intended date of termination on account of redundancy;
• where an employee is not a member of a trade union, the employer notifies the employee personally in writing and the labour officer;
• the employer has, in the selection of employees to be declared redundant had due regard to seniority in time and to the skill, ability, and reliability of each employee of the particular class of employees affected by the redundancy;
• where there is in existence a collective agreement between an employer and a trade union setting out terminal benefits payable upon redundancy; the employer has not placed the employee at a disadvantage for being or not being a member of the trade union;
• the employer has where leave is due to an employee who is declared redundant, paid off the leave in cash;
• the employer has paid an employee declared redundant not less than one month’s notice or one month’s wages instead of notice; and
• the employer has paid to an employee declared redundant severance pay at the rate of not less than fifteen days pay for each completed year of service.

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