WINDHOEK – Former Miss Namibia, Barbara Kahatjipara, scored a partial victory yesterday in the Windhoek High Court after the Namibian Employers Federation (NEF) agreed to settle a civil case.
This came after Tim Parkhouse, the Secretary-General of the Federation, conceded during cross-examination that the trip to New York that landed Kahatjipara in hot water was partly authorised. The NEF had sued Kahatjipara for an alleged unauthorised trip to New York during 2010.
She arrived in New York on June 19, 2010 and stayed there until July 05, 2010. Parkhouse claimed the former beauty queen was only authorised to stay until June 30 thereby overstaying her visit by five days at the expense of the NEF. On the assertion by Kahatjipara that Parkhouse had indeed authorised her to stay the extra days as a holiday, Parkhouse was adamant that he could not remember making such a gesture.
The federation represented by Geofrey Dicks and Kahatjipara’s defence team led by Advocate Hennie Van Vuuren instructed by Louis du Pisanie agreed that Kahatjipara will repay the Federation N$7 500 within 30 days of the date of the order.
They arrived at this amount after the documents, receipts, quotations, etc. that Kahatjipara submitted to the NEF somehow developed feet and walked away. Kahatjipara also scored another victory when it was ordered that the settlement is made without any acknowledgement of liability whatsoever on her part.
By Roland Routh