Court halts Sankwasa’s return to Hardap regional chief post

THE Hardap Regional Council has won a round in the High Court in its attempt to prevent the return of its Chief Regional Officer, Sankwasa James Sankwasa, to the post he has been occupying since August 2004.

In a ruling given by Judge Collins Parker on Thursday last week, it was ordered that the Hardap Regional Council does not have to now implement a ruling in which a labour arbitrator directed the Regional Council to reinstate Sankwasa in the post that he claims to have been unfairly removed from.The Regional Council has asked the Judge to stop the execution of the arbitrator’s decision while it pursues an appeal against that ruling.Sankwasa started with a five-year tenure as Chief Regional Officer of the Hardap Regional Council on August 11 2004.The Public Service Commission had however recommended his appointment to that position in early October 2003 already.After Sankwasa eventually took up the post, he got a legal opinion from his lawyer, who advised him that the decision by the Public Service Commission was supposed to have been implemented from the date when that decision was relayed to the Regional Council, which was October 3 2003.The result of his advice was that the Regional Council paid him an amount of N$36 000 to compensate him for the income he had lost because of the delay in implementing the Public Service Commission’s recommendation of his appointment in the top administrative position at the Regional Council.According to the Regional Council, the effect of this was that the start of Sankwasa’s term of office was backdated to the beginning of November 2003, which meant that his five-year term – during which Sankwasa had also been suspended, without ever facing disciplinary charges, for close to two years – ended at the end of October last year.Sankwasa did not agree with this view, and lodged a labour complaint against the Regional Council, claiming that he had been unfairly dismissed from his post when the Regional Council decided he had reached the end of his term.Sankwasa relied on the legal advice that was given to him to demand the payment that was later made to him, Judge Parker noted in his ruling last week.According to Sankwasa, though, the payment of N$36 000 to him was an ‘ex gratia’ payment that the Regional Council made willingly, due to the prejudice that had been caused to him when the Public Service Commission’s recommendation was not implemented for ten months.This contention by Sankwasa was ‘baseless’, Judge Parker commented in his judgement. He stated that he knew of no law, and had not been referred to any either, under which a person who is not employed by the Public Service is paid such a large sum of money of State funds as ex gratia payment, which is as a favour rather than as a result of an obligation to make such a payment.Judge Parker found that the understanding of both the Regional Council and Sankwasa had been that the Regional Council had a legal obligation to make the payment to Sankwasa because it had been agreed to backdate Sankwasa’s contract with the Regional Council to November 1 2003.As a result, the Regional Council should be allowed to seek a reversal of the arbitrator’s decision, the Judge decided.In the case before Judge Parker, the Regional Council was represented by Sisa Namandje. Richard Mueller of the firm Koep & Partners represented Sankwasa.