Sports minister Agnes Tjongarero has been ordered to pay all the legal fees incurred by Namibia Sports Commission (NSC) chief administrator Freddy Mwiya, who dragged her to court for rejecting the board’s recommendation to renew his contract.

“The [minister] shall pay [Mwiya’s] costs, including one instructing and one instructed counsel,” Judge Kobus Miller ruled.

In May, Mwiya sought an urgent interdict against Tjongarero, who continued to ignore a recommendation by the commission’s board to renew his contract for another five years.

In fact, Tjongarero fired the NSC board at the time, alleging insubordination, as the two parties continued to differ on the contract renewal.

A day before getting their marching orders, the board had installed Mwiya as acting chief administrator indefinitely from 1 June until the disagreement between the two parties was resolved.

Retaliating, Tjongarero fired the board, “on account of deliberate insubordination and ignoring of directives from the appointing authority”.

The NSC board had recommended that Mwiya’s contract be renewed until 2027, saying he had performed well at the commission over the past five years.

His performance was evaluated by an independent consultancy in consultation with the board, and he got an overall score of a B.

Fairly and reasonably

Tjongarero refused to endorse the recommendation, saying the position must be advertised so that other qualified Namibians could also apply for it.

The board, then led by Joel Matheus, insisted that Tjongarero had no power to appoint anyone outside what had been recommended by it.

According to the settlement between the two parties, Tjongarero’s numerous rejections of the board’s recommendation to hand Mwiya a new contract were in conflict with Article 18 of the Namibians Constitution, which required officials to “act fairly and reasonably”.

Yesterday, the minister said she had no comment when asked for a reaction to the settlement, which has been made an order of the court.

One of the factors Namibian Sun sought to establish with her was whether she will pay the legal costs in her personal capacity, or whether she’ll burden government with the bill.

Mwiya’s new contract is effective from tomorrow, 1 September, and runs until August 2027.