NRSC ordered to file defence in GH¢6 m suit

August 6, 2010 (Page 3)

THE Commercial Court in Accra has ordered the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC) to file its defence in a GH¢6 million suit brought against it by a private printing firm.
Dismissing a motion to set aside a suit issued against it by the Safeway Printing Works Limited for failing to pay for supplied customised road safety equipment, the court held that there was no merit in the NRSC’s motion.
The court, presided over by Mrs Justice Gifty Dekyem, therefore, awarded GH¢300 costs against the NRSC in favour of the plaintiff.
In the substantive suit, Safeway Printing is claiming GH¢6 million, being the unpaid cost of 500,000 pieces of customised advanced double function warning triangles it supplied to the NRSC.
The plaintiff is also claiming GH¢161,240, being money paid to the NRSC at its request to finance various media campaigns for the advanced warning triangle.
It is also praying the court to order the defendant to pay interest on all moneys owed the plaintiff by the NRSC at the prevailing commercial bank rate with effect from January 1, 2009 to June 30, 2009 until the date of final payment.
In a statement of claim filed on behalf of Safeway Printing by its counsel, Mr Kwaku Bram-Larbi, the plaintiff stated that on or about September 2008, the defendant, per the Government of Ghana Purchase Order Number 0514649, awarded the plaintiff a GH¢6 million contract to supply 500,000 customised double function triangle warning light 51 LLD with NRSC/DVLA seal and identification serial number engraved at the rear of the device.
According to the plaintiff, it contracted a loan from the Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB) to finance the importation of the customised items and assigned the proceeds of the contract to the bank until the cost of the loan was cleared.
It pointed out that the defendant’s attention was drawn to the acquisition of the loan and its chief executive consented to the assignment by acknowledging notice of it in a letter dated October 21, 2008.
It said the warning triangles were imported and delivered to the defendants in early 2009 but the defendant had either been unable or refused to pay for the cost of the customised items imported by the plaintiff.
The statement further pointed out that the NRSC, prior to the importation of the triangles, wrote various letters urging Safeway Printing to fund the publicity and media campaign for the warning triangles, to which the plaintiff obliged and released GH¢161,240.
According to the plaintiff, the inability or refusal of the NRSC to collect and pay for the customised items it ordered was causing grave financial embarrassment to the plaintiff, such that its bankers had threatened to sue and attach its properties used as security for the loan.