DIS drops the ball on employees' salary back pay
Mpho Mokwape | Wednesday July 16, 2025 14:11
The DIS has kept its aggrieved employees waiting for over 10 months since a 2024 High Court ruling ordered that they be paid their outstanding salaries. Before the Court of Appeal had the case thrown out yesterrday, the DIS was told that their appeal is out of time.
The bench told DIS that its failure to follow court rules cannot be tolerated, especially that the appeal is filed willy-nilly, and to make matters worse has no supporting substantive grounds.
“The appeal is just void; even if we were to consider other reasons for filing late, there are no grounds for the appeal. We understand this is because during the trial, you were not presenting reasons why you cannot produce reasonable grounds to back up the appeal. It is just filed, and there are no grounds as to why it is filed in the first place,” stated the judges in their decision.
The dismissal comes after DIS tried to appeal the judgment that had ordered the payment of salary back pay. The appeal surfaced after the aggrieved employees decried the government's failure to comply with a court order for close to 10 months.
This was after the employees won a case in which they had taken the employer to court for breach of contract (for refusal to pay them back pay dating as far back as 2001).
Their main contention was that the employer had failed to pay them salary back pay despite the government having issued directives and savingrams to that effect. The employees had taken the Directorate of Public Service Management (DPSM), DIS, and Attorney General to court seeking salary back pay effective from April 2008.
However, the DIS was not willing to pay and decided to appeal Justice Zein Kebonang of the Gaborone High Court’s judgment of December 6, 2024, in which he declared that the decision not to pay the officers was unlawful.
“The decision not to pay the officers back pay is unlawful in so far as the decision to pay is not back-dated to 2001 when Directive No.10 of 2001 came into force,” he said at the time of the judgment.
Justice Kebonang had also ordered that the decision not to pay the officers was contrary to Directive No.6 of 2008 as read with the savingram titled Implementation of the Court Of Appeal Judgment pertaining to Directive and Savingrams on Multiple Tilting and Grading of C-Band Positions dated May 13, 2022.
He had stated that the decision not to pay officers was unlawful because they had a legitimate expectation to receive back pay effective April 2008.
“The decision not to pay the employees is contrary to the parity principle, thus unlawful,” Justice Kebonang said at the time.
The spy agency responded to the employees’ grievances by filing an appeal with the Court of Appeal on the grounds that the claim made by the employees was a dispute of fact and ought to have been supported by led evidence.
“The claim of entitlement to multiple grading and titling of C-band is a clear dispute of fact on which evidence ought to have been led. The orders of the court remain unenforceable as the respondents’ case was for an unliquidated claim, and there is nothing before the court that speaks to the payment breakdown of each respondent,” reads the appeal.
The holding grounds in the appeal further state that the application of the directive is in their discretion and that they have justly applied the same directives and savingrams. The appeal also maintained that the employees’ claims for progression and training cannot be confirmed as final, as they are tantamount to specific performance, and that the orders of the court of June 3, 2024, and, by extension, of December 6, 2024, are vague and therefore rendered unenforceable.
“Moreover, the court a quo erred in holding that the respondents were entitled to the relief sought, when ex facie their papers, the respondents had failed to prove their entitlements and quantum thereof,” reads the papers. The appellant is seeking relief in that the orders of the High Court be set aside, costs of suit, and further or alternative relief.
Meanwhile, the back and forth between the DIS and its employees is a lawsuit based on the fact that about 403 employees in 2023 issued a writ of summons against the DPSM, DIS, and AG on grounds that the decision taken by the government not to pay salary back pay effective from April 2008 was unlawful. Two employees have since abandoned the appeal, leaving only 401.