Court orders fresh election of school board

National, Normal
Source:

The National- Wednesday, January 12, 2011

 By SAMUEL RAITANO

THE National Court has ordered a fresh election for the Wamapisa Primary School board of management (BoM) in Enga for this year’s operation.

The decision was made by Justice Graham Ellis after finding that previous appointments of an interim board had been brought to court by a party without proper evidences and both parties involved in the court case were at fault.

The decision to call a fresh election was to avoid disputes and also to ensure that proper procedures were being followed in the process. 

The case was brought before the court by the caretaker head teacher Nick Naniya and former BoM chairman Wasiya Ranyeta after a board they had set up was replaced by an interim BoM through the approval of the provincial education board (PEB) and the provincial education adviser in collaboration with the former head teacher in a separate election.

According to the court, both parties had failed to produce concrete evidences on the elections they had conducted separately as being proper and in accordance with the Education Act.

Ellis made a ruling that a new election is held and the outcome be communicated to the PEB before Jan 21 this year.

Following allegations of misappropriation, Ellis also ordered that the PEB chairman Dr Samson Amean saw to it that an audit was done to the financial records of the school from January 2007 to Dec 31, last year.