Lobatse High court judge, Abednico Tafa, has ordered Keforege Ntirang, the former treasurer of the National Amalgamated Local and Central Government, Manual and General Workers Union, to turn up for a contempt hearing scheduled for June 6.
This comes after Ntirang failed to appear in Court on the first day of the hearing on 23 May.
Only her lawyer, Sesupo Mosweu, turned up in court. The judge issued a writ of summons that she should turn up for the next hearing.
Her summons to attend court will be served on Ntirang in Kanye where she works for the government.
The case results from the time the union experienced some upheavals in 2004. The ensuing turmoil resulted in the formation of two parallel executive committees. Ntirang at that time, before the divisions and misunderstandings rocked the union, was the treasurer; she then broke away from the executive and joined a rival group.
That group considered itself the legitimate executive and called meetings in the name of the executive. It is the receipts of such meetings that are the subject of the court skirmishes.
After a long trial, Tafa ruled in favour of the union and ordered that Ntirang should hand over all what is required of her by the applicants within 30 days and pay the costs of the trial.
When that did not happen within the stipulated time, the union’s lawyer went back to Court to inform it about Ntirang’s non compliance.
Currently, the union lawyer, Pusoentsi says that he holds instructions to go to Court for contempt proceedings against Ntirang and to ask that she be committed to prison if she does not comply with the order.
Pusoentsi says that this was the only option left for them.
The union says it needs the receipts to help them to find out how money amounting to P256, 000, which was withdrawn from the Union’s account, was spent.
