Editor Files Motion To Restrain GIMPA

An Accra-based lawyer and Editor of the Ghanaian Observer newspaper, Mr Egbert Isaac Faibille Jnr, has filed a motion for an interlocutory injunction at the Accra Fast Track High Court to restrain the Governing Council of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) and the institute from taking any steps to either confirm, approve or appoint Dr Stephen Adei to the position of a professor.

According to Mr Faibille, Dr Adei is not a professor, either at GIMPA or any other institution, and he should, therefore, be restrained from holding himself out as such
.

He further wants the court to order GIMPA to advertise the position of rector, since it is vacant because, according to him, since the tenure of office of Dr Adei expired on October 1, 2004, he has not been re-appointed as rector of GIMPA.

While the suit was ongoing, Mr Faibille said, his attention was drawn to a memo dated March 4, 2008, signed by the Deputy Rector of GIMPA and addressed to the Secretary of GIMPA, seeking to take steps in appointing Dr Adei as a professor as a result of which the Deputy Rector was requesting for a meeting with members of the GIMPA Governing Council.

In his affidavit in support of the motion, Mr Faibille said in furtherance of the enterprise to appoint Dr Adei to the position of professor, the Deputy Rector had in another memo dated February 21, 2008 requested the secretary to provide him with guidance on the next statutory process in finalising Dr Adei's application to be appointed professor.

He said pursuant to the request, the secretary, who ought to have known that the issue regarding Dr Adei's professorship was before the court, submitted a report to facilitate the process of appointment.

He said at the directive of the Deputy Rector and by implication the council, the process for appointing Dr Adei to the position of professor during the pendency of the suit had been activated with the constitution of a Faculty Promotion Committee (FPC) made up of two professors to review Dr Adei's application for appointment as professor and approve it, subsequent to which the FPC had moved additional step of processing three external assessors who had completed their report on the application.

According to Mr Faibille, having completed the process, the only step left for the council's agent — the FPC — was to meet and review Dr Adei's application for professorship in order to make a recommendation to the council.

By their conduct, he said, Dr Adei, the Council and GIMPA had jointly and severally evinced a clear intention to proceed with the appointment of Dr Adei as professor during the pendency of the suit.

Story by Stephen Sah