Windhoek
The Windhoek High Court yesterday dismissed the urgent application of National Housing Enterprise (NHE) senior manager Uazuva Kaumbi against the company’s decision to bar him from applying for its CEO position.
“The application is dismissed and no order as to costs is made,” Acting High Court Judge Leezhel van Wyk said and then rose to leave the courtroom. Van Wyk did not immediately reveal any reason for her verdict, but said due to some technicalities the reasons would only be available on the court’s website by yesterday afternoon.
Kaumbi, a senior manager for technical services and property management at NHE, earlier this month lodged an urgent application to interdict the company’s board of directors from implementing its decision to appoint – with effect from July 1 – Gisbertus Mukulu as the new CEO of the housing parastatal.
The interdict was sought pending the resolution of a dispute Kaumbi lodged with the Office of the Labour Commissioner over the same matter.
In the dispute lodged with the Labour Commissioner, Kaumbi sought the review and setting aside of the decision by the Board of NHE not to consider current members of the company’s management team for the position of CEO.
He asked the Labour Commissioner to declare the appointment of Mukulu null and void and to order the firm to start afresh the process of recruiting a CEO. Kaumbi feels the decision to bar him and other NHE insiders from applying has no basis in law and excludes potentially qualified candidates.
The board argues that the current crop of managers has been part of NHE’s failure to execute its mandate efficiently and is, therefore, looking for an outsider who might bring a new lease of life to the company.
Mukulu is the current CEO of Okahao Town Council, which last week started searching for his replacement by advertising his position in local newspapers.
Kaumbi was represented in court by Nixon Marcus, while Advocate Thabang Phatela argued the case for the NHE on instructions of
Clement Daniels Attorneys. Advocate Tinashe Chibwana, assisted by Nelson Mutorwa from the Attorney-General’s office, represented the Minister of Urban and Rural Development.