A judgement about Windhoek City Police chief Abraham Kanime's reappointment to his post in 2020 is due to be delivered in the Windhoek High Court near the end of May.
This is after judge Hannelie Prinsloo on Friday heard oral arguments in a case in which Kanime is challenging a decision about his appointment that the Windhoek City Council took in February 2021.
Prinsloo postponed the delivery of her judgement to 29 May, after hearing the arguments of lawyers Sisa Namandje, representing Kanime, and Patrick Kauta, who represented the city council, its chairperson and the acting chief executive officer of the City of Windhoek.
In a counter-application in response to the lawsuit that Kanime filed against the city council in August 2021, the council is asking the court to order that Kanime should pay back the salary of N$115 685 per month, and also monthly housing and car allowances of N$40 490 and N$15 189, respectively, which he has been receiving from the City of Windhoek since the start of May 2020.
The salary and allowances the council wants Kanime to pay back to the city would amount to about N$6,5 million by the time his employment contract ends at the close of April this year.
The council is asking the court to review and set aside Kanime's reappointment as head of the city police near the end of April 2020 as well.
In his application against the city council, Kanime is asking the court to review and set aside a council decision, taken in February 2021, to start a recruitment process aimed at appointing a new head of the city police.
That council decision was taken after a High Court case in which a Popular Democratic Movement city council member, Ignatius Semba, challenged the legality of Kanime's reappointment, was settled between Semba and the city council in November 2020. Kanime says he was not part of that settlement agreement, which was made an order of the court.
He is arguing that the settlement agreement and the court's order did not invalidate his employment contract, which, according to him, still exists and remains valid, and did not invalidate a city council decision in April 2020 to approve the terms of the employment contract for his reappointment as city police chief until the end of April 2023.
Kanime also wants the court to declare a regulation made by the minister of home affairs in 2002 as invalid and unconstitutional.
That regulation states that a municipal council must consult the inspector general of the Namibian Police before it appoints someone as head of its municipal police.
'PAY BACK'
According to the council, however, a council decision in February 2020 to retain Kanime's services as city police chief was unlawful. This is so, City of Windhoek corporate legal adviser Benedictus Ngairorue says in an affidavit filed at the court, because in terms of the Windhoek Municipal Police Service Regulations of 2013 the council can retain the services of a city police member after the member's retirement, but in Kanime's case he resigned as chief of the city police in January 2020 and did not retire from the post.
Ngairorue claims the then chairperson of the city council's management committee, Moses Shiikwa, unlawfully called a meeting of the management committee on 28 April 2020.
At that meeting, the committee appointed an acting chief executive officer (CEO) of the City of Windhoek while the post of the city's then CEO, Robert Kahimise, was not vacant, and the acting CEO then unlawfully called a council meeting for the following day, according to Ngairorue.
At that council meeting on 29 April 2020, the reappointment of Kanime was approved.
Shiikwa signed a new employment contract with Kanime the next day.There was a sequence of unlawful conduct that led to that signing, Kauta said in written arguments filed at the court.
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Since no valid employment agreement between the city council and Kanime was concluded in April 2020, Kanime was enriched at the expense of the city, that enrichment was unjustified, and Kanime should pay back the money he has received from the city since May 2020, it is also stated in Kauta's written arguments. The city is "scandalously" now demanding that Kanime should pay back the salary for which he has been working for three years, Namandje charged in his written arguments. An order that Kanime should pay back his salary and allowances to the city would be extraordinary, Namandje argued.
He also argued that Ngairorue has not shown he was properly authorised by the city council to ask the court to order that Kanime should pay back his salary and allowances.
Ngairorue did not inform the court why he did not take any steps to challenge Kanime's April 2020 employment contract if he knew it was unlawful, Namandje argued as well.
"This is a sad and sorry state of affairs," Namandje commented.
