Lawyers for the Minister of Nationality, Immigration and Gender Affairs Annah Mokgethi are reportedly making a last-ditch effort to ward off an impending imprisonment of the Gaborone North Bonnington North legislator.
This follows a decision by a granddaughter of the late Abdul Joseph to apply to the Court of Appeal to have the minister jailed for contempt of court.
As an administrator of the late Joseph’s multi-million Pula estate, the minister had applied to the Master of the High Court seeking an extension of a Court Order to allow her to prepare detailed report showing proper accounting records of what happened to her former client’s estate.
Mokgethi’s first attempt at complying with the Court achieved little success as her first report was rejected by the Master of the High Court who deemed the report to be incomplete. The Minister’s second attempt at accounting for the estate in the form of another report has now also been rejected by her late client’s daughter.
In the fresh application before the Court of Appeal, Dawn Masenya accuses the legislator of deliberately failing to comply despite knowing the potential consequences saying as a senior officer of the court she should have known better.
Masenya said Mokgethi was given 30 court days to comply with the Court’s Order adding this period expired on 17in September 2021.
“The Respondent (Mokgethi) did not comply,” said Masenya adding that “the Respondent is not above the law. Such repeated contempt should not be tolerated.”
Masenya further noted that Mokgethi “has been represented by several senior attorneys over the years and is herself, a senior member of the bar. It is reasonable to expect that she is fully aware of her duty to obey court orders and to comply with the Administration of Estates Act and the implications of her failure to do so.”
She said on 20 September 2021 she sent a letter to Mokgethi, reminding her that she had failed to meet the time line set by the Court and asking for her intentions.“Unbeknownst to me, the Respondent had sought an extension of time from the Master of the High Court in which to account… Therein the Master refers to a letter from the Respondent dated 15th September 2021 seeking a two week indulgence,” said Masenya.
She said Mokgethi “took this additional time without the authority of the Court, or the Master and without any reference to me. My attorney advises me that only this Honourable Court may vary its own Orders.”
“The Respondent provided a partial accounting on 21st September 2021. Had this been complete I would have had no quarrel with the brief delay. However, it was far from complete, even with respect to those issues and assets it claimed to account for,” said Masenya.
She added: “A second, and woefully deficient, “accounting” was delivered by the Respondent on 5 October 2021. On receipt of this the Chartered Accountant compiled an analysis of such information as had been provided, and noted what she needs to properly scrutinise and assess the correctness of the “accounting” provided.”
She said in essence, the report of the chartered accountant shows that she was unable to properly fulfil her mandate because of the unreliability of the information provided, the significant information which remains undisclosed and the inadequacy of the information that was provided.
Masenya quotes the Chartered Accountant as advising and noting that: “Annual Financial Statements provided (by Mokgethi) are inaccurate and unreliable.”
She also quotes the chartered accountant as noting that the files provided by Mokgethi “have many missing, illegible, redacted or inadequate documents and the bundles are prepared in a very haphazard manner.”
Masenya reiterated that “The Accountant considered the disbursements to the 3rd Respondent, and raises obvious issues with the requests which make these very questionable…The defects in these requests are so numerous and obvious that to set them all out would be wasteful of the Court’s time.”
Masenya said it was clear that Mokgethi has no intention of obeying the Court Order.
“She cannot say she is unable to account for the Estate which has been under her control since 2012. She has the information and the capacity to obey the Court Order but wilfully decided not to do so,” said Masenya. She said the Master wrote to Mokgethi on 23 September 2021 advising that the first set of information was inadequate and gave her an opportunity to address the inadequacies in her supplemental information.
She did not do so, said Masenya.
“Į am grown weary from my battles over the last 10 years to persuade the Respondent to do the right thing. This battle has taken its toll on me financially, emotionally and in terms of time. I’m deeply concerned that, despite the removal of the Respondent as Executrix in August 2020, she has retained full control of the Estate and refuses to account,” said Masenya.
She said the minister must be compelled to hand over all documents, records and information on the Estate to the Executor and relinquish all control.
“My attorney advises me that having shown that the Respondent has knowledge of the Order and has not complied, I have done what I need to do to show contempt. Having shown these elements, she advises me, it is for the Respondent to show that her non-compliance was not willful,” said Masenya.
She concluded thus, “As the Order of this Court was for the Respondent to perform or do a particular act, my attorney advises me that the appropriate remedy is her committal, in the event that she is found to be in contempt. This, or the spectre of committal, seems to be the only means by which this Court’s Order may be enforced.
