Collins and Newman lawyers last week filed an appeal on the eleventh hour just as Gaborone Deputy Sherriff Joseph Kokeletso was about to seize the property he had attached the previous day for safe keeping.
This followed after Chief Justice Maruping Dibotelo had ordered that Edward Molemane Lekoko, BTC’s former employee, be paid a sum of P2, 866, 460.86 being the difference of the amount of P393, 193.78 already paid to him as part of exit package.
BTC then took long to honour the judgment resulting in Lekoko giving his lawyer, Philemon Leitshamo, further instructions to make sure that the judgment is honoured.
The eleventh hour appeal has since been confirmed by the BTC Public Relations Officer, Golekanye Molapisi, who said that they have since reached a decision to appeal the judgment by Dibotelo as they feel it was not right.
“I can confirm that our lawyers at Collins, Newman & Co have already filed an appeal in the matter; as such removal of our property has been stopped,” he said.
In his judgment Chief Justice Dibotelo had criticized BTC lawyers, saying that they had failed to comply with the agreed time limit for filing despite that it was made out of consent of the two parties on 5th April, 2013.
BTC lawyers instead filed answering affidavit 28 days later on 16 May, 2013 and that they did not file any application explaining and giving reasons why its affidavit was filed out of time in order to give the Court an opportunity to determine whether its failure to comply with the Court order was reasonable and bona fide.
He further said that even punitive order for the costs against BTC did not spur it to file on time “as apparently those awash with money especially public institutions , large companies or corporations think they can just ignore scheduling orders issued by Courts and do not bother that much even when they have to pay punitive costs…”
