National Assembly secretary Lydia Kandetu says Parliament is not liable to backpay members who joined the House two years later, while their seats were occupied by fellow party members.
She was responding to a fresh bid by Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) parliamentarians who were sworn-in in 2022.
Since their swearing-in, they have been demanding backpay from the National Assembly, as they allegedly became duly elected Members of Parliament in 2019.
“We are only liable for paying a member of the National Assembly. When the first group was gazetted by the Electoral Commission of Namibia (ECN), those names were forwarded to us, and we started paying them.
“When they were removed following the court ruling, we stopped paying them, as they
ceased to be members [of the National Assembly]. Following another ECN gazette of new names, we started paying the new MPs,” she said.
Kandetu confirmed receiving the demand letter.
“We are just the paymaster. We don’t decide who gets paid. We don’t remove or bring people to Parliament,” she said.
She further clarified: “This matter is between the party [PDM] and ECN. Parliament does not take names of prospective MPs to be sworn in to the ECN for gazetting. It’s between the party and ECN. In consultation with the given party, ECN gazettes the party list, and then brings the gazette to Parliament. After that, Parliament swears them in, and starts paying them”.
Back in 2022, the Supreme Court ruled that six PDM members – Esmeralda Esme !Aebes, Johannes Martin, Kazeongere Tjeundo, Godfrey Kupuzo Mwilima, Timotheus Sydney Shihumbu and Pieter Mostert – were unlawfully added to the National Assembly list.
Following that ruling, they were replaced by Hidipo Hamata, Yvette Araes, Maximalliant Katjimune, Reggie Diergaardt, Charmaine Tjirare, and Mike Venaani, father of PDM’s leader McHenry Venaani.
Payback
Through their lawyer Norman Tjombe, in a demand letter seen by this reporter, the MPs are still insisting on being reimbursed for financial losses incurred while their seats were occupied by the ousted group.
In a letter to Kandetu, dated 25 November 2024, the group demands what they believe is due to them.
“Due to unlawful actions on the part of the Electoral Commission of Namibia, our clients were removed from the list of duly elected persons. The decision to remove the names of our clients from persons to be sworn-in as members of the National Assembly was set aside by the Electoral Court of Namibia. An appeal by the ECN and Popular Democratic Movement was dismissed, thus affirming the unlawful conduct of withdrawing our clients’ names from those to be sworn-in. Our clients were eventually sworn-in on 6 June 2022,” Tjombe said.
Their perks should be backdated to 20 March 2020.
“The actions of the ECN were no doubt unlawful as confirmed by a full bench of the Electoral Court of Namibia and the Supreme Court of Namibia. It was unlawful for the secretary of the National Assembly to have accepted the list of persons to be sworn in, which list excluded our clients.
In terms of section 110(3)(b) of the Electoral Act, the chairperson of the
Electoral Commission must declare the candidates on the list of candidates – not any other person – of each political party in which case a number of seats had been determined to be duly elected as members of the National Assembly with effect from the date as determined in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Namibian Constitution.
It is common cause that the date so determined was 20 March 2020,” Tjombe went to length to make his clients’ demands clearly known.
He added: “Considering the unlawful actions of the Speaker of the National Assembly, our clients are members of the National Assembly of Namibia as of 20 March 2020. Accordingly, they are entitled to the remuneration and other benefits as members of the National Assembly as from 20 March 2020.
Our instructions are to demand, as we hereby do, that our clients be paid their regular remuneration, including the provision for the pension contributions, as from 20 March 2020, failing which legal action will be instituted against the National Assembly, with costs, and that we receive written confirmation of the payment by no later than 11 December 2024”.
Their demands are premised on the Supreme Court judgement of 30 May 2022, which paved their way to be members of the legislative organ.
“From the reading of paragraph 41 of the judgement, it becomes evident that because of the sacrosanct notion of separation of powers, the court did not delve into the quagmire of whether we (the six ‘new’ members) ought to be compensated for the period in which we were prejudiced from occupying our seats in the National Assembly or not.
“What the court did, however, was to leave it entirely to the discretion of the National Assembly to enforce any legal remedies, if any, in regard to such remuneration, allowances, perks and privileges that were afforded to the invalidly appointed members,” the lawyer said in an earlier letter.
– emumbuu@nepc.com.na