Kumasi (\Ashanti Region) 24 Feb 2000
DHL Ghana Limited, a courier company, has been ordered to pay 9,057 dollars 50 cents to Miss Mary Wiafe, a Kumasi-based businesswoman for breach of contract.
This followed the dismissal of an appeal filed by the company against the ruling of a Kumasi Circuit Court by the Appeal Court.
In upholding the Circuit Court's ruling, the Appeal Court awarded cost of 500,000 cedis against DHL.
A Circuit Court presided over by Mr Justice W. Kpentey on 24 February 1998, ordered DHL to pay the amount for breaching a contract between them and Miss Wiafe.
The amount is made up of 6,100 dollars being the value of traveller's cheques sent by Ms Wiafe in a parcel through DHL to be sent to her trading partners in Shangai, China, which the company failed to deliver.
The remaining 2,957 dollars 50 cents is six-and-a-half per cent interest per annum on the amount for seven years.
Mr Justice Kpentey, in his ruling, said the company took upon themselves the duty or responsibility to transport the parcel safely but the parcel never reached the addressee.
He said for five clear years, DHL could not trace the parcel and they could not even tell where the parcel got lost, "that in my view is manifest evidence of serious negligence, for which the company cannot escape liability".
The lower court awarded 250,000 cedis cost against the company.
Miss Wiafe, Managing Director of M. W. Enterprise, dealers in hair products, in her statement of claim, said on 17 June, 1991, she took a parcel to the DHL's office in Kumasi to be sent to Shangai, China.
The statement said one Chief Owusu Afriyie, an employee of the company, inspected the parcel and found that it contained travellers cheques valued at 34,100 dollars. Owusu Afriyie filled the air waybill to which Ms Wiafe paid 12,500 cedis and was given a receipt.
It was later discovered that the parcel had not been delivered, and the Area Manager of the company, therefore, verbally requested Ms Wiafe to stop the cheques and followed up later with a letter.
The statement said Ms Wiafe stopped the traveller's cheques but Mr Thomas Cook Paterborough, the addressee later informed her that traveller's cheques for 6,100 had already been presented and paid leaving 28,000 dollars.
It said the company traced the parcel in vain. Ms Wiafe made a written demand for a refund of the 6,100 dollars from the company but in their reply, DHL refused to accept liability for the payment of the amount.
Ms Wiafe, therefore, filed the suit against the company to claim the 6,100 dollars and interest on the amount.
GRi./