Staff Writer
A legal showdown is looming between the City of Windhoek and its Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Robert Kahimise as the latter has threatened to take legal action over Wednesday’s council decision to reappoint City Police Chief, Abraham Kanime to a three year contract without following set procedures.
This comes as the council took the unprecedented decision to appoint an acting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to preside over the Kahimise appointment, despite the substantive CEO being in office. This is a move which has caused even more fractions between the CEO and the 15-member council dominated by the ruling Swapo Party.
“How do you appoint an acting CEO when I am in office? As far as I know, that meeting was illegal as I did not sanction it. I am the accounting officer of the City and will have to take legal action to protect the integrity of the city,” he said.
Despite mounting concern over its legality, the City of Windhoek council is adamant that Wednesday’s council decision to reappoint Kanime was above-board and procedural.
“I do not have the power to stop council meetings and as usual, Wednesday’s meeting discussed what was brought through from the management committee. There was nothing written objecting to the meeting and as far as I was concerned, the meeting was legal,” Windhoek Mayor Fransina Kahungu said.
She said as per council regulations, those that would have wanted to object to any of the matters on the agenda should have followed the procedures, “there was nothing wrong with me presiding over the meeting and those that were not in support of it know that they should have put that in writing and we did not have that.”
Quizzed on the legality of appointing an acting CEO for the meeting, she said the decision was made by the management committee, which has the power to do so.
“If the management committee made the decision, then it’s within their power to do so because there have the legal power to appoint an Acting CEO. It’s up to anyone to bring to attention of the Chairperson of the council if they feel the decision is unfair or illegal,” Kahungu said.
The Windhoek Mayor said the legal opinion by Kwala & Company, a legal firm hired by the City was only applicable to the case in which Popular Democratic Movement (PDM) city council member Ignatius Semba had approached the High Court to stop the council from implementing the decision to reappoint Kanime as head of the Windhoek City Police.
‘That legal opinion was only applicable to the court case and not the appointment of Kanime as recommended by the management committee. The opinion was actually never discussed by the council,” she said.
The legal opinion given by Kwela & Company, warned the City council that the reappointment of Kanime as head of the City Police will be unlawful following his resignation. It opined that the re-appointment would have legal ramifications if implemented as the courts were likely to overturn the it if challenged.
“Council is under a constitutional and legal obligation to act in accordance with the prescripts of the law. Any deviation from the prescripts of the law will result in any decision taken as contrary to the prescripts of the law as unlawful,” the non-binding legal opinion read.
It further stated that, “Council cannot proceed with the implementation of its decision, as the decision finds no application with the regulations as stated supra in my analysis of the applicable regulations. In the vent Council proceeds to implement its decision, the decision stands to be set aside by a court of law.”
