The case in which Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) investigator Phelem Masule is fighting the decision of Prime Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila to unceremoniously reverse his promotion in 2020, is currently on hold for a presiding officer to be appointed.
On Friday, Windhoek High Court judge Eileen Rakow postponed the matter to 1 March for judge-president Petrus Damaseb to implement the Supreme Court order.
Last year, the Supreme Court ordered to allow the appeal, set aside the judgement of the high court, and remit the matter to the high court to be heard and determined by a judge assigned by the judge-president to the Labour Division of the high court.
The ruling resulted from Masule’s appeal of the high court’s decision that it did not have jurisdiction to hear his application in which he is seeking a court order that will set aside Kuugongelwa-Amadhila’s decision to reverse his appointment as chief of investigations and prosecutions, days after his appointment.
Masule was promoted to the position of chief of investigations and prosecutions in July 2020 on the recommendation of the Public Service Commission (PSC) after applying for the advertised position and attending interviews. However, shortly after he occupied his new position in August, Kuugongelwa-Amadhila set aside the promotion.
In a letter directed to Masule, Kuugongelwa-Amadhila indicated that she set aside the promotion due to irregularities which occurred within the recruitment process.
She explained that the ACC’s shortlisted candidates failed to provide required documents with their applications. In addition, the ACC allegedly communicated with the candidates after the application period had ended – which is against the rules.
Thus, Kuugongelwa-Amadhila ordered the commission to restart the process of recruiting a new chief of investigations and prosecutions.
In a supplementary affidavit, the head of the ACC Paulus Noa stated that he was aware of the irregularities in the recruitment process.
According to him, he was informed that some of the applicants submitted incomplete or wrong documents with their application, but that it was ‘agreed’ that this may be rectified during the vetting process for the shortlisted candidates. One of those who submitted incomplete documents was a certain Iyambo, who initially scored the highest during the interviews.
However, he said, the PSC felt that Masule, who scored insignificantly less than Iyambo, was the preferred candidate because of his long-standing history with the ACC.
- mamamkali@nepc.com.na