Gobabis officials get suspensions set aside

The High Court has set aside decisions of the Gobabis Town Council to suspend seven municipal officials in 2021.

The town council’s decisions to suspend the seven officials were reviewed and set aside as unfair, unreasonable and invalid by judge Herman Oosthuizen in a judgement delivered in the Windhoek High Court on Friday.

Oosthuizen also declared five meetings and decisions taken by the Gobabis Town Council in respect of the seven officials in May, August, September and November 2021 as invalid and of no force and effect in law.

He further declared the appointment of Steve Adonis as acting chief executive officer of the Gobabis Town Council on 5 July 2021 as invalid, and set aside his appointment together with all actions and decisions he took in relation to the seven officials who were suspended.

The seven officials are Frieda Shimakeleni and Filemon Makili, who were both strategic executives of the Municipality of Gobabis, acting strategic executives Penda Shilemba and Wynona Steyn, electrical services manager Johannes Nantuua, information technology officer Kondjeni Nghiwanapo and Paul Kayambu, who is an information technology technician. They were suspended after the Ministry of Regional and Local Government carried out an investigation into capital projects of the Gobabis municipality that were done during the financial years from 2012/13 to 2019/20, Oosthuizen recorded in his judgement.

He added that according to the town council and its leadership, there was some evidence that some service providers of the Gobabis municipality had been favoured by some employees of the town council, and that Shimakeleni, Makili and Shilemba appeared to have played some role in alleged maladministration in the municipality. In an affidavit filed at the court in December 2021, Shimakeleni claimed she and her colleagues were targeted and victimised by the Gobabis Town Council after the local authority elections in November 2021, in which a coalition of previous opposition parties won a majority of seats in the council.

Oosthuizen remarked in his judgement that the town council, in an answering affidavit filed at the court, did not dispute allegations that the meetings at which the decisions to suspend Shimakeleni, Makili, Shilemba, Nantuua and Steyn were taken had not been lawfully convened in terms of the Local Authorities Act.

Shimakeleni claimed in her affidavit that the special council meeting at which a decision to suspend her was taken on 10 May 2021 had not been convened by the council’s chairperson upon a request in writing signed by at least half of the council’s members, as required in the Local Authorities Act. Oosthuizen noted that Nghiwanapo and Kayambu were initially placed on special forced leave by the municipality’s then chief executive officer on 26 May 2021. In August 2021, the then acting chief executive officer of the municipality, Steve Adonis, informed them that they were being suspended because the town council “has received information which makes it believe that you committed some acts of very serious misconduct”.

However, Adonis’ appointment in an acting capacity was invalid – with the result that his decisions to suspend Nghiwanapo and Kayambu were also invalid – as the town council’s management committee did not designate him to be be appointed in that position, and the minister of urban and rural development’s written approval for his appointment was also not obtained, Oosthuizen found.

He ordered the town council to pay the seven officials’ legal costs in the case that they filed to have their suspensions set aside.

The seven officials were represented by lawyer Sisa Namandje.

Gerson Narib represented the Gobabis Town Council.