Former deputy minister awarded ‘peanut’ in Sh145m suit

Dar es Salaam. Former Deputy minister for Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation Dr Susan Kolimba was demanding the payment of Sh145million from a businessman, who breached an agreement to supply her two buses but the High Court awarded her only Sh51 million.

While agreeing that Simagunga General Trading Company Limited and its owner, Donald Simagunga, were paid Sh400 million and breached the agreement, the commercial division of the High Court said there was enough evidence that Sh355 million was refunded to Ms Kolimba.

The former deputy minister entered, in December 2015, into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the firm for the supply of two brand new higher buses that were to be delivered within 90 days.

The Special Seats MP claimed she then borrowed Sh500 million from CRDB Bank and paid the plaintiff Sh400 million.

She further alleged that the defendants failed to deliver the buses as agreed and refused to refund the money. After discussions, she claimed, the defendants agreed to refund the Sh400 million plus 30 million being fluctuation and loss of exchange rate but only refunded Sh285 million.

At the hearing of the case, the defendants accepted part of the liability, saying it was true that Ms Kolimba, through her husband George Mrikaria, approached them for the purchase of the two buses on credit.

He told the court that the manufacturer of the buses later imposed conditions that the borrower must be in the transportation business for at least two years or pay the full amount.

The defendant claimed to have refunded Sh355 million through her husband George Mrikaria’s bank account and was only indebted Sh41 million.

But in his recent decision, High Court judge Stephen Magoiga, while siding with the plaintiff that the defendants breached the terms of the MoU by failing to deliver the buses, the judge said the defendants have proved by documentary evidence to have refunded Sh355 million to the plaintiff.

The judge was questioned why Ms Kolimba’s husband George Mrikaria who was a material witness to the whole transaction was not called to support the plaintiff’s case.

The judge awarded the former minister Sh10million in general damages for breach of contract.