Ruling in Seduke, Parliament case set for next month

  • The two tussle over student logbooks
  • Flying school now under judicial management
  • School blames gov’t for its financial troubles

 

LETLHOGILE MPUANG

The judgment in the case in which International Aviation Solutions (IAS) has dragged Parliament to court over student logbooks has been set for 5 November 2020. IAS and its director, Teezzarh Seduke, made an urgent application to the Gaborone High Court last month after the school was summoned to appear before the Parliamentary Committee on Education and Skills Development.
The committee, which is chaired by the MP for Francistown South, Wynter Mmolotsi, also demanded that IAS and Seduke release the logbooks of students who were not able to complete their pilot training. The school is recently under judicial management following financial constraints that it argues are the result of the ministry’s failure to pay it P18 million it owed the school
In the application, the school and its director are demanding that the court urgently block the committee’s further attempts of getting the student logbooks until the government has fully paid the money. The applicants are represented by Mike Rasetshwane of Modimo & Associates in the matter in which members of the parliamentary committtee are cited as respondents. The members are Wynter Mmolotsi, Caterpillar Hikuama, Polson Majaga, Lesedi Leapotswe, Sam Brooks, Oabile Regoeng and Tshoganetso Leuwe.
The committee “and its constituting members, have sought to become the law unto themselves and abuse the applicants into producing documents when they have a lawful right to hold on to them pending payment and/or resolution of a dispute between the 1st applicant (IAS) and the Government of Botswana through the Ministry of Tertiary Education, Research, Science and Technology,” IAS says in its court papers.
On the other hand, state lawyers want the court to dismiss the application on grounds that Seduke failed to exhaust all local remedies. Section 13 (2) of the National Assembly: Powers and Priviledges Act, which the state lawyers cite, says if any person summoned before a parliamentary committee refuses to provide any answers, they must report to the Speaker of the National Assembly.
Meanwhile, those associated with the school have expressed concerns at the snail’s pace of the matter. Besides the fact that students are currently idling and face an uncertain future, employees of IAS have also been impacted.
The Botswana Gazette has it on authority that it has been two months since the school, through its Judicial Manager Oliver Modise, proposed to the ministry that the matter be settled through adjudication. Seduke has been quoted in several newspaper reports as saying he is in no way fighting government and that he remains positive that the matter will be resolved ammicably.
IAS is the only privately owned flying academy in Africa accredited by International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).