The microloans company, Entrépo Finance, has failed with an attempt to get a court order requiring minister of finance Ericah Shafudah to explain under oath how the ministry plans to implement a fully functional payroll deductions management system for government employees.
An urgent application that Entrépo Finance filed against the finance minister last Thursday was dismissed with costs by judge Lotta Ambunda in the Windhoek High Court yesterday.
Entrépo Finance was asking the court to order Shafudah to file a sworn statement at the court in which the company wanted her to set out a detailed plan stipulating how she would implement a fully operational payroll deductions management system (PDMS) for the finance ministry, with or without the company Avril Payroll Deduction Management.
Avril administered the finance ministry's PDMS until the end of November.
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Entrépo was also asking the court to allow it to request, based on the same documents filed at the court on Thursday, that Shafudah be found guilty of contempt of court and sentenced to a fine or a period of imprisonment, which would be suspended immediately when she complies with an interim court order issued on 28 November.
In the order, the court directed the finance minister not to interfere in the loading of new deductions on the government's PDMS and not to issue instructions that no new deductions may be loaded onto the system.
The court also authorised the continued operation of the PDMS pending the outcome of an application in which Entrépo is asking the court to review and set aside Shafudah's decision to discontinue the system administered by Avril from the end of November and to stop the loading of new deductions on the system.
Deduction codes that the finance ministry wants to discontinue allow microlenders like Entrépo to have repayments of loans granted by them deducted directly from the salaries of government employees and paid to the lenders.
Entrépo Finance is alleging that Shafudah has failed to comply with the court order issued on 28 November.
Shafudah is denying the company's claim.
Entrepo's managing director, Liffie Champion, says in an affidavit filed at the court on Thursday that the company has not been able to get access to the PDMS, on which it depends for all of its business, since 1 December.
Champion, who is claiming that Shafudah has not complied with the court order of 28 November, says Shafudah "intends moving from a computerised real-time system to a manual system operated by humans and which does not remotely resemble the PDMS, which is what the court ordered should remain in place, and which the minister stated under oath that it was ready to conduct in-house".
Champion also alleges in her affidavit: "The minister is clearly intent on implementing a system which falls far short of the PDMS which she was ordered to maintain and not to interfere with."
In an answering affidavit filed at the court, Shafudah denies she has interfered in the loading of new deductions on the PDMS or has given instructions that no new deductions may be loaded on the system.
Describing the court order as "vague in the extreme", Shafudah says it "simply authorises the continuation of the PDMS but does not spell out the obligations of the role players".
The court did not order her to renew the agreement with Avril that came to an end at the close of November, Shafudah notes.
After the agreement with Avril expired, the executive director of the Ministry of Finance has had to set up structures that would allow for new deductions to be loaded onto a payment system, and amounts that should be paid to deduction code holders from the salaries of government-employed teachers and police officers should be paid tomorrow, Shafudah says.
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"There is no basis on which I should be held in contempt of court," Shafudah states as well.
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