Lawyers acting for the Institute of Health Sciences (HIS) lecturers are expected to file a court application calling for the arrest of Director of Public Service Management, Carter Morupisi, and the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Dr Kolaatamo Malefho, for contempt of Court.
HIS lecturers, who have been fighting to be paid their overtime allowances that they are owed by the government as ordered by Courts more than two years ago, have instructed their Francistown-based lawyer David Ditiro to ask Court to order the imprisonment of the two senior public servants for contempt of court.
An HIS lecture confirmed the instruction, which he said was the last resort, after trying everything to have government honour the court order. “We feel this is the only remedy left for us after many months of promises that were finally not fulfilled by the powers that be”.
He claims that, instead of making sure that the court order is carried out, Malefho has been writing confusing savingrams to his juniors ordering them to pay nurses. He said the few that got part of their payments have not been paid in accordance with the court order which is a clear indication of contempt of court.
“Paying not in accordance with what court has ordered is in our view contempt of Court and that is why we want the two men to be jailed,” he said.
The government had initially been refusing to pay the lectures the allowances on grounds that they were no longer nurses but nursing lectures. The nursing lectures then took the matter to court where it was ruled in their favour that they were entitled to the allowances just as their counterparts working in clinics and hospitals. Attempts to speak to Ditiro were futile.
