Africa-Press – Namibia. FORMER Rehoboth Swapo town councillor Colleen van Wyk is suing ex-education minister Katrina Hanse-Himarwa for defamatory comments she allegedly made on Facebook last year while she was defending Swapo’s failure.
Court documents show that Van Wyk is demanding N$250 000 from Hanse-Himarwa for “damaging her reputation and for suffering”.
Van Wyk served as the Swapo councillor for Rehoboth between 2010 and 2015. She is now a presidential appointee in the Swapo central committee as of 2017.
The details of the defamation case are contained in documents unfolding in the High Court.
Hanse-Himarwa accused Van Wyk of being a double roller between opposition political parties, and a bat.
The communication on social media originated from a report posted by The Namibian on 25 February 2021.
The report cited Van Wyk’s son – the late former Rehoboth mayor Rudi van Wyk – who claimed that water cuts at the town were because of debt of N$23 million.
In that article, the late van Wyk blamed the Swapo administration for historical debt.
Hanse-Himarwa commented on the Facebook post, questioning why Rudi van Wyk was blaming Swapo for historical debt through the media when his mother was part of the previous administration.
“His own mother was a Swapo councillor of Rehoboth. So his mother is part of the failure in the past. His mother is also currently a member of the Swapo CC and she is also a national assigned leader to the Hardap region. When he blames Swapo, he must equally declare his interest of the mother. Of mati?” Hanse-Himarwa said in the post.
She added: “He is blaming Swapo for historical debts. I thought it was only ethical to declare that those debts were accumulated under the watch of his mother as Swapo mayor. He was a beneficiary of the non-payments as he was enjoying the allowances and S&T his mother was receiving.”
Van Wyk said that Hanse-Himarwa has refused to apologise.
“Notwithstanding demand for retraction and apology, including demand for payment as constituted hereby, the defendant fails and refuses to retract and apologise for her defamatory statements,” court papers read.
Van Wyk argued that the statement made by the former minister was intended to mean that she is “a dishonest person, disloyal to the interests of the Swapo party, deceitful and of questionable character and untrustworthy”.
“The social media platform known as Facebook is broadly and effortlessly accessible to the general public, and is widely used among the vast populace as a means of, among others, engaging in dialogue and commenting on topical and general issues,” she said.
Van Wyk is represented by Leezhel Mouton from Van Wyk Legal Practitioners, while Hanse-Himarwa is represented by Trevor Brockerhoff.
In her defence submitted in November last year, Hanse-Himarwa confirms having made the statements but claims it was “wrongly misinterpreted”.
“It is disclosed to the honourable court that it was the plaintiff’s son who started the criticism about Swapo (his mother’s party) whereby this is how the double roller word was derived and came by,” Hanse-Himarwa said.
She added: “As members of the same party, we had expected the mother to call her son to order. However, she did not do so as a senior member of the party, and her party was partly criticised. This kind of action to me shows double rolling.”
The case was on Monday postponed to 23 August to allow for a mediation session.
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