THIRD LEVEL COMPANY LIMITED & ANOR v. ASANTE KROBEA

JUDGMENT

This suit was commenced by the Plaintiff by a writ of summons and statement of claim filed on 02/12/2013, perhaps, one of the oldest cases pending before this court. Indeed, the Defendants amended their statement of defence thrice in the course of the trial and sought so many adjournments on various grounds. But for the attitude and conduct of the Defendant s towards this trial, the curtain would have been brought down much earlier!

These are the reliefs sought by the Plaintiff in its amended statement of claim filed on 02/02/2015:

a) Recovery of the sum of Ninety Thousand, Nine Hundred and One Ghana Cedis ( GH¢ 90, 901.42) being monies owed the Plaintiff which the 1st Defendant as the employee of the Plaintiff has failed to account for and which the 2nd Defendant has at all times been the Guarantor of the 1st Defendant with the Plaintiff.

b) Interest on the said amount from 1st October, 2013 at the prevailing bank rate till the time of final and full payment.

THE PLAINTIFF'S CASE

The Plaintiff described itself as a Limited Liability Company registered as a Guinness distributor at Ahwiaa, Kumasi, and the 1st Defendant as its employee, a salesman, to be specific. The Plaintiff alleged that due to declining sales, it agreed to sell products to its cherished customers on credit basis instead of the usual cash sales. As a rule, all salesmen were instructed to collect the total indebtedness of every customer before selling more products to them at any given time. At a point in time, it came to the attention of the Plaintiff's General Manager that the 1st Defendant had not accounted for a lot of the products that were given to him to sell and he was queried. The 1st Defendant is said to have admitted that customers who had purchased goods on credit had not paid for the same. He was therefore tasked to recover all outstanding sums before he would be allowed to sell more products; he then presented cheques from some customers which were dishonoured by the bank. Thereafter, the plaintiff alleged that its General Manager accompanied the 1st Defendant to the alleged defaulting customers but they indicated that they had paid for all their products to the hearing of the 1st Defendant. It is the Plaintiff's case that the 1st Defendant owes the company the sum of GH¢ 90, 901.42, and the 2nd Defendant who stood as his guarantor has been duly informed.

THE CASE OF THE 1ST DEFENDANT.

The 1st Defendant in his further amended statement of defence filed on 17/