Green challenges SSC

THE Social Security Commission’s former General Manager: Finance and Administration, Avril Green, is taking the company to the Labour Court to challenge his dismissal.

In March, an internal disciplinary hearing found Green guilty of gross negligence and dereliction of duty for his role in the transfer of N$30 million in SSC funds to Avid Investment Corporation. He was dismissed with immediate effect.Yesterday, Green’s lawyer, Richard Metcalfe, served the SSC with court papers demanding his immediate reinstatement and the payment of his N$55 000 a month salary backdated to March this year.He also demanded that the company pay for all losses suffered while Green was dismissed and the legal costs incurred in defending his disciplinary case.Metcalfe gave the SSC a deadline of September 18, when a pre-hearing conference will be held at the Ministry of Labour to try and resolve the dispute.If no agreement is reached, the case will be heard in the Windhoek District Labour Court on September 25.The Deputy Messenger of Court, Milton Engelbrecht, confirmed that he had served the papers on the SSC yesterday.He referred all inquiries to the company and Green’s lawyers.An SSC official confirmed that they were in possession of the papers but said they would not comment at this stage.In March, lawyer Nate Ndauendapo, who chaired Green’s disciplinary hearing, found him guilty on five of the six charges that he faced at a disciplinary hearing over his role in last year’s Avid investment scandal.The sixth count, Ndauendapo found, was in essence a duplication of one of the other charges.Green was the last of three SSC executives involved in a decision to invest N$30 million with the now liquidated Avid Investment Corporation to face internal disciplinary action .Gideon Mulder, who was the SSC’s Manager: Corporate Finance at the time of the investment deal, was dismissed following a disciplinary hearing in May last year.Tuli Hiveluah, the Chief Executive Officer of the SSC at the time of the investment, was suspended on August 10 last year and resigned in September.Green faced charges of gross negligence, gross insubordination, poor performance, two counts of dereliction of duty and function, and a charge of exceeding his powers and duties at his disciplinary hearing.He was found guilty on all of them except for the dereliction of duty counts, which Ndauendapo said overlapped with the charge of poor performance.The thrust of the charges against Green was that he had failed to properly carry out his duties by first of all giving his approval to a decision to invest the N$30 million with Avid, and by not taking proper steps to put a stop to the investment later on, when he received information that cast serious doubts on Avid’s credentials as an investment handler.Green was reported to be involved in some of the earliest meetings when directors of Avid first approached the SSC with a proposal that it should channel investments through the company.According to Green, one of the things he was told at these meetings was that the Swapo Party Youth League had shares in Avid and that “a higher authority” had sent the directors to the SSC to solicit investments from it.On January 21 last year, Green and Mulder co-signed a letter to Avid in which they informed the company that the SSC had decided to invest N$30 million through Avid for a four-month period, at an annual interest rate of 14,65 per cent.’BIASED AND IMPROPER’ Green also directed a letter to the SSC’s bankers to instruct them to transfer the money to Avid – but he ordered that this letter should not be sent after he made enquiries with the Navachab Gold Mine, which had previously invested money through Avid, and was told that the financial guarantee for that investment that Avid had given to the mine was not accepted by any bank in Namibia.In the papers presented to the SSC yesterday, Green accused Ndauendapo of being “biased” in his disciplinary hearing.He claimed that his alleged misconduct was not properly investigated, that the company had refused to disclose vital information related to board meetings to him during the course of the disciplinary hearing, and treated the employees differently by dismissing him while the CEO Hiveluah was not subjected to a hearing and was paid “a handsome monetary package when he resigned”.Green also claims that Ndauendapo failed to deal with several substantive arguments raised on his behalf during the hearing but merely ignored them.”The chairperson of the disciplinary hearing (Ndauendapo) refused to recuse himself when an application for recusal was brought on the grounds that there was a reasonable perception of bias on the part of the complainant (Green),” the papers said.Green alleged that he was illegally dismissed by Ndauendapo when he was just supposed to make a recommendation to the SSC.”The Board of Directors (of SSC), and the appeal hearing officials, failed to properly deal at all with the merits of the appeal or the dismissal in exercising their discretions and merely rubber-stamped the decision of the chairperson of the disciplinary hearing,” he said.Norman Tjombe pressed the charges against Green on behalf of the SSC.Green was represented by lawyers Rudi Cohrssen and Richard Metcalfe.He was dismissed with immediate effect.Yesterday, Green’s lawyer, Richard Metcalfe, served the SSC with court papers demanding his immediate reinstatement and the payment of his N$55 000 a month salary backdated to March this year.He also demanded that the company pay for all losses suffered while Green was dismissed and the legal costs incurred in defending his disciplinary case.Metcalfe gave the SSC a deadline of September 18, when a pre-hearing conference will be held at the Ministry of Labour to try and resolve the dispute.If no agreement is reached, the case will be heard in the Windhoek District Labour Court on September 25.The Deputy Messenger of Court, Milton Engelbrecht, confirmed that he had served the papers on the SSC yesterday.He referred all inquiries to the company and Green’s lawyers.An SSC official confirmed that they were in possession of the papers but said they would not comment at this stage. In March, lawyer Nate Ndauendapo, who chaired Green’s disciplinary hearing, found him guilty on five of the six charges that he faced at a disciplinary hearing over his role in last year’s Avid investment scandal.The sixth count, Ndauendapo found, was in essence a duplication of one of the other charges.Green was the last of three SSC executives involved in a decision to invest N$30 million with the now liquidated Avid Investment Corporation to face internal disciplinary action .Gideon Mulder, who was the SSC’s Manager: Corporate Finance at the time of the investment deal, was dismissed following a disciplinary hearing in May last year.Tuli Hiveluah, the Chief Executive Officer of the SSC at the time of the investment, was suspended on August 10 last year and resigned in September.Green faced charges of gross negligence, gross insubordination, poor performance, two counts of dereliction of duty and function, and a charge of exceeding his powers and duties at his disciplinary hearing.He was found guilty on all of them except for the dereliction of duty counts, which Ndauendapo said overlapped with the charge of poor performance.The thrust of the charges against Green was that he had failed to properly carry out his duties by first of all giving his approval to a decision to invest the N$30 million with Avid, and by not taking proper steps to put a stop to the investment later on, when he received information that cast serious doubts on Avid’s credentials as an investment handler.Green was reported to be involved in some of the earliest meetings when directors of Avid first approached the SSC with a proposal that it should channel investments through the company.According to Green, one of the things he was told at these meetings was that the Swapo Party Youth League had shares in Avid and that “a higher authority” had sent the directors to the SSC to solicit investments from it.On January 21 last year, Green and Mulder co
-signed a letter to Avid in which they informed the company that the SSC had decided to invest N$30 million through Avid for a four-month period, at an annual interest rate of 14,65 per cent.’BIASED AND IMPROPER’ Green also directed a letter to the SSC’s bankers to instruct them to transfer the money to Avid – but he ordered that this letter should not be sent after he made enquiries with the Navachab Gold Mine, which had previously invested money through Avid, and was told that the financial guarantee for that investment that Avid had given to the mine was not accepted by any bank in Namibia.In the papers presented to the SSC yesterday, Green accused Ndauendapo of being “biased” in his disciplinary hearing.He claimed that his alleged misconduct was not properly investigated, that the company had refused to disclose vital information related to board meetings to him during the course of the disciplinary hearing, and treated the employees differently by dismissing him while the CEO Hiveluah was not subjected to a hearing and was paid “a handsome monetary package when he resigned”.Green also claims that Ndauendapo failed to deal with several substantive arguments raised on his behalf during the hearing but merely ignored them.”The chairperson of the disciplinary hearing (Ndauendapo) refused to recuse himself when an application for recusal was brought on the grounds that there was a reasonable perception of bias on the part of the complainant (Green),” the papers said.Green alleged that he was illegally dismissed by Ndauendapo when he was just supposed to make a recommendation to the SSC.”The Board of Directors (of SSC), and the appeal hearing officials, failed to properly deal at all with the merits of the appeal or the dismissal in exercising their discretions and merely rubber-stamped the decision of the chairperson of the disciplinary hearing,” he said.Norman Tjombe pressed the charges against Green on behalf of the SSC.Green was represented by lawyers Rudi Cohrssen and Richard Metcalfe.