Two ordered to pay court charges after loss

THE High Court’s Commercial Division has ordered two shareholders with National Investment Company Limited (NICOL), Salum Shamte and Boniventura Mtei, to pay 3.4m/-as costs after losing their case challenging resolutions to investigate alleged misuse of 10bn/- company funds.

In their case, Misc. Commercial Application No 11 of 2017 in which they lost the case, the two shareholders had sought for, among others, a declaratory order that NICOL Annual General Meeting held on November 26, 2016 at the Bank of Tanzania Conference Hall should be declared null and void.

However, Judge Haruna Songoro ruled against them in July last year, after allowing one ground of objection presented by three respondents, NICOL and interim management led by the Company’s new Chairman, Dr Gidion Kaunda and Manager Kinoni Wamunza, that the petition was incompetent.

The judge ordered the petitioners to pay costs. Through their advocate Benjamin Mwakagamba from BM Attorneys, the respondents had stated that the petition in question was incompetent for not being supported by a valid affidavit sworn by petitioners (Mr. Shamte and Dr Mtei).

After such decision, the said two shareholders filed another Misc. Commercial Application No 262 of 2017 before the same court, requesting for an extension of time within which to file a petition under the companies Act, Act no 12 of 2002.

The matter is scheduled for hearing of some points of preliminary objections on April 20, 2018 before Judge Songoro that have been raised by NICOL Ltd, in the effect that the court lacks jurisdiction to hear and entertain the application.

Other grounds of objections are that the application is bad in law for offending the doctrine of corporate personally and that it contravene High Court’s Commercial Court Rule. In this matter, the shareholders are represented by advocate Michael Ngalo.

In the petition that was rejected by the court, the two petitioners had stated that the meeting convened by the interim management on November 26, 2016, was invalid because there was no proper quorum and no audited accounts of NICOL for years 2010 to 2015 were produced.

However, the respondents had strongly disputed the claims by the petitioners, stating that the failureto produce the financial reports for 2010 to 2015 was contributed by lack of cooperation from the former NICOL management, who refused to hand over control of the subsidiary companies.

The companies are Tanzania Meat Company and Fisheries Development Company. They stated further that the petitioners and the ousted Board Chairman of NICOL have been instituting numerous frivolous court cases and obtained injunctive orders to frustrate the operations of the company.