A dismissed Mobile Telecommunications Company (MTC) employee embroiled in multiple legal battles with the company must wait until July to hear if the Labour Court will rule in his favour in the multi-million-dollar suit.
Joseph Nakalemo, who worked as a network management and technical quality administrator, has accused his former employer and its management of corruption, discrimination and victimisation. He also claims to be afraid for his life and job because of the alleged abuse. In his suit, Nakalemo is asking the court to order his ex-employer to pay him N$43 million for unfair dismissal.
He also wants MTC, alongside its management, comprising managing director Licky Erastus, Tim Ekandjo, Ludwig Tjitandi, Cornelius Louw, Raymond Cloete and Maria Kavari, to pay him N$18 million for the emotional and psychological abuse he allegedly suffered at their hands for eight years.
He further wants N$43 million for a default judgement with the arbitrator.
Nakalemo, who represented himself on Monday, informed judge Kobus Miller in submissions that his former employer has made it impossible for him to get legal representation.
He said he was jointly abused and bullied by those in management, and forced to be a poor performer.
His salary was also reduced from
N$989 740.64 to N$681 657.94.
“I was and am still being economically attacked or economically assassinated. The first respondents, Timoteus Ekandjo, and the managing director [Erastus] to date refused to pay back my N$215 814.01 as of 19 October
2020, and still went further to dismiss
me and facilitate the process for
+-N$150 000 to be stolen from my pension fund credit again. Those are economic assassinations,” said Nakalemo.
The victimisation started when he became the liaison between staff members and management on the allegations of corruption involving MTC executives totaling N$1.29 billion, he told the court.
“Therefore, it’s my respective submission as a legal argument that this is a web, well-coordinated by powerful individuals, well-connected to the State resources and machinery to have me destroyed. The respondent in the case above could not deny, dispute or simply answer the question of whether they were working together with MTC executives,” he argued.
On the other end, MTC’s lawyer Florian Beukes asked the court to dismiss
Nakalemo’s suit, saying it was defective.
Beukes said despite having mentioned the executives in his papers, Nakalemo had failed to join them in the suit.
Furthermore, the court has no
jurisdiction to hear the matter, as the claim of N$43 million for unfair dismissal and that of N$18 million are still being dealt with by the Office of the Labour Commissioner, Beukes said.
“The application is nothing but a misfiled review application in that the applicant is of the view that the Labour Commissioner and arbitrators are biased, and have failed to attend to his case for over a period of two years, and now he wants the matter to be determined by the Labour Court, including the conduct of the Office of the Labour Commissioner.”
On the emotional and psychological abuse, Beukes argued that Nakalemo failed to identify which of the executives were responsible, and when such actions
occurred.
He said Nakalemo was dismissed after having gone through a valid disciplinary process. Furthermore, it was found that he was, in fact, the one who caused emotional and psychological damage to MTC employees.
The lawyer also asked the court for Nakalemo to pay the cost of the suit as he brought the application in a “frivolous or vexatious manner,” and has made serious defamatory statements against his former employer.
“The statements are defamatory in nature as they allude to the fact that the first respondent and its employees are corrupt, conspire to murder, and are lawless. They are further defamatory as they allude that
the first respondent’s legal representative is dishonest, unethical and guilty of unprofessional conduct,” he said.
Beukes went on to say Nakelamo’s application is based on conspiracy theories, unsubstantiated allegations and contrived scenarios, and must be dismissed.
The court will give a ruling on 5 July.
-mamakali@nepc.com.na