RULING
This ruling is in respect of a preliminary legal matter raised by counsel for the defendant.
Counsel for the defendant has taken aim at the witness statement given and filed by one Godfrey Owusu Ansah who described himself as the Chief Accountant of the Plaintiff company. The said statement was given on behalf of the Plaintiff company. Counsel’s objection is that the since the plaintiff company has given a power of attorney to Global Debt Trackers to institute this action on its behalf and the said power of attorney has not been revoked, Godfrey Owusu Ansah as an officer of the company cannot testify on behalf of the company. Counsel cited the case of Kofi Oduro v Cynthia Okyere (2014) 69 GMJ 108 to 109 and submitted that since there is no limitation on the authority of the attorney to act and no provision is made in the power of attorney for the plaintiff to act while the instrument is still in existence, it is wrong for the plaintiff to act through its officer. He therefore invited the court to dismiss the instant action.
In his response, counsel for the plaintiff stated that he is opposed to the application. He submitted that when a party appoints an attorney to act in his name and on his behalf, the party does not waive his right to perform any part of the duty assigned to the attorney. He stated that nothing in the Power of Attorney Act, 1998 suggests that when you appoint an attorney then you seize to have the power to act for yourself with respect to what you asked the attorney to do. He stated that if the framers of the Act wanted that situation to prevail they would have provided same in the Act. He submitted that according to Hon Sir Peter Milletin his Encyclopedia of Forms Precedents5th edition, vol 31, power of attorney is part of the law of agency and once an attorney is appointed he becomes the agent of the donor (principal). Consequently, a principal does not waive his right to act when he appoints an agent. Counsel for the plaintiff also submitted that the Kofi Oduro case (supra) must be distinguished from the instant case since in that case the principal limited the duty of the attorney to act only when the principal was out of the jurisdiction and therefore it stands to reason that when the principal was present in the jurisdiction then the attorney could not act for him. Counsel further submitted that the said officer of the company is only acting as a witness for the company and that under sections 59 and 60 of the Evidence Ac
