Limkokwing sues lecturer for P5million

CHANDAPIWA BAPUTAKI
Staff Writer | Thursday July 15, 2010 00:00

Limkokwing University is suing one of their lecturers O'brian Mkali for making a defamatory statement thus undermining their reputation on national television.  In the letter addressed to Mkali from the institution's lawyer Sipho Ziga of Armstrong  Attorneys  they said Mkali 'is demanded to pay a sum of P5 million being reasonable estimate of damages suffered by the institution as a result of his statements' .

In the letter, Ziga reminded Mkali of his statement on June 21, 2010 that was broadcast on Botswana Television 'which has coverage not only in Botswana but various countries across Africa.'

In the televised broadcast Mkali said that about 30 % of Limkokwing lecturers or workers will be affected by the retrenchments with about 60 expatriates having received their retrenchments letters. 'They have not given sufficient notice to look for other things, to look for jobs and so forth. The retrenchment is unprocedural, because it did not exhaust the procedure, the process, which should have been observed before resorting to retrenchment.

We see the retrenchment being the first priority at the expense of other things like quality to students and technical alternatives,' he said adding that a lot of courses offered at the institution have been downloaded from Wikipedia.

'I can put it to you that you can go and cross reference between a whole lot of courses that are available on the ground at Limkokwing and they are word for word similar to what you get on Wikipedia on the internet, it is not a secret,'said Mkali.

However, in the letter from the lawyers Ziga said that the statement was made maliciously, with intent to injure the institution in its trade and profession. Ziga said the said statement is defamatory in that it falsely accuses the institution of unlawfully retrenching staff when in fact no employee has been retrenched and plagiarising its courses content from the Internet.

'That statement was calculated to undermine our clients' reputation and did in fact do so in the eyes of the right thinking public,' Ziga said on behalf of Limkokwing. He further stated that in view of the defamatory nature of Mkali's utterances the lawyers have been instructed to demand that the lecturer retract the statements made in a newspaper published in Botswana, 'which you shall specifically repudiate and apologise for your defamatory statement. We should approve that retraction and apology. This will solely reduce the quantum of damages suffered.'  The demands are to be met by the close of business day on July 21, 2010 failing which as according to the letter a court action will be issued against Mkali.

Mkali was further advised that any further broadcast of the aforesaid statement would only serve to aggravate the quantum of damages.  However, TAWU general secretary Edward Tswaipe said the lecturer has been cited as having given the interview on behalf of the union and they would support him.