COURT ousted managing director of the National Housing Corporation (NHC), Mr. Henry Joseph Mokono (pictured) has acknowledged and thanked the Marape-Rosso Government for having the confidence in appointing him as the NHC MD back in July, 2021.
After three months on acting capacity, Mr. Mokono formally signed his four-year employment contract at the Government House on October 26, 2021.
With over 25 years of corporate management experience on his belt Mokono was on track in cleansing and restoring NHC from the ‘pit of hell’ buried in corruption, low staff morale and loss of public confidence in the organisation.
He was 22 months into the job only to be removed by a National Court decision of April 28, 2023 which found that the appointment process that got him in was defective because it did not get endorsement of the NHC board whether the NHC board was functional or not at that time.
Mokono who became the ‘pawn in the whole scheme’ had to foot his own legal fees to challenge the April 28 decision in the Supreme Court only to be turn down again on November 30, 2023 after a three men Supreme Court bench upheld the April 28 decision of the National Court and refused his appeal.
Everything is now back on the drawing board where the onus is now on the Housing and Urbanization Minister, Dr. Kobby Bomareo to fit in a functional board of the NHC to effect the vacancy and calling of fresh applications for the position of a new managing director of the NHC to be sanctioned by Department of Personnel Management (DPM) and the National Executive Council (NEC).
Mr. Mokono is eligible to re-apply when the application is open.
For the first time since Nov 30 when the Supreme Court (SC) quashed his appeal, Mr. Mokono has come out in public to air his views about the power fight at the top echelon of the demoralized NHC.
“I am in support and agree with the statements made by the Minister for Housing with relations to the Court decisions.
“Decisions both at the National Court and then the SC have no Orders made specifically for the reinstatement of Ms. Bowada, hence, her outrageous claims for her reinstatement are wrong and misleading both in facts and law.
“I have spent substantial personal monies in legal costs to defend these litigation matters, when my appointment was defective from the beginning, when I was a pawn (innocent party) in the whole scheme of things that occurred during the appointment processes.
“These court decisions have now set precedence on all future Statutory Appointments which will guide the appointing authorities including the NEC, so such blunders are not repeated again.
“I have accepted the decisions of the judiciary and bowed out gracefully because I am a person who have respects for all authorities including the NEC and others, and no qualms against anyone.
“For common sense to prevail Ms. Bowada and her lawyers should refrain from disrupting NHC and causing anymore chaos and havoc by misleading the general public of the courts decisions and keep moving on with their lives.
“Allow the Minister for Housing, the management and staff to continue providing housing solutions to our people.
“I thank the Marape-Rosso Government for their trusts and confidence in me to appoint me as the MD, back in 2021, however, the processes and procedures were not lawfully followed as confirmed by the Courts that ousted me from the job.
“Defeat is a sour pill and hard to swallow but we must have respects for the Judiciary under all circumstances and not to pursue our egoistic interests and create confusion and chaos”, Mr. Mokono said.
