CARMEL RICKARD: The perils of social media in the workplace
A dispute between the Namibian tender board and its own review panel highlights the limits of social media for official communication
Litigating in Namibia? Be warned that the court will not regard last-minute WhatsApp messages as sufficient notice to attend hearings or other official meetings. This much has become clear from a bizarre dispute between the country’s Central Procurement Board, which deals with state tenders, and that board’s review panel. Their dispute concerned a tender to supply a new kind of driver’s licence card, and the case aimed to test the powers of the review panel in court. At the start of his decision, judge Thomas Masuku said the case was "rather unusual" as it involved two creatures of statute, both set up by the same law: the Public Procurement Act of 2015. Masuku, whose decisions are usually worth reading for his distinctive style, among other reasons, commented that the act was "relatively new, probably teething". Following its enactment, he said, there had been a difference in view among the various bodies and officials involved, as they tried to delineate the extent of their powers...
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