The over 5-year long legal battle over the ownership of Pergah Transport Ltd has ended at the High Court, leaving strained relationship between Bertha Ansah Djan, a former Chief Executive Officer of MASLOC, and Pryce Kojo Thompson, a former MD of SSB Ltd, which is said to be negatively affecting the operations of the company.
Information available to the Daily Statesman indicates that the company, whose ownership is now in the hands of Mr Thompson, won a contract in February, this year, to procure over 100 vehicles for Tullow Oil, but has failed to deliver within the stipulated period of 90 days.
Our checks show the company managed to procure only 10 of the over 100 vehicles meant for the Accra and Takoradi offices of Tullow.
Bertha Ansah-Djan, otherwise known as Bertha Sogah, was dismissed as CEO of MASLOC in 2013 after she had openly admitted taking an amount of GHC 500,000 from the accounts of the state-run organisation and handing it over to Amisgold Microfinance Services Limited, a private company owned by her husband.
Before that, she had been in the news in 2010, with the claim that she had caused Pergah Transport Ltd to lend a sum of GHC100, 000 to MASLOC, as the then MD.
Bertha Ansah Djan instituted a legal action against Pryce Kojo Thompson, claiming that she was the sole owner of Pergah Transport Ltd, even though entries in the records at the Registrar General’s Department pointed to the contrary.
The plaintiff, among other things, was seeking the following reliefs: a declaration that she owned all the issued shares in the company; a declaration that Mr Thompson was not a shareholder of the company; and an order for the Registrar General to expunge from its records, the Deed of Transfer dated January 1, 2004, made between the parties, as well as all entries showing Mr Thompson as holding any issued shares in the company.
Bertha averred in her statement of claim that she formed Pergah Transport Ltd in 1999 as a sole shareholder, but entered into a deed of transfer in 2004 with the 1st defendant whereby 70% of the shares of the company would be transferred to him for a sum of Two Hundred and forty Million Cedis (now GHC24, 000).
She further claimed that without paying for the shares, Thompson caused the deed of transfer to be registered with the Registrar General, adding that the transaction only got to her attention later after searches were carried out on the shareholding of the company.
According to Bertha, she caused the deed of transfer to be repudiated subsequently, with notice to Thompson, who later in April 2011 sent a cheque as payment for the shares, which she rejected.
But in response, Thompson contended that “the company was incorporated upon his instructions and that whatever shares the plaintiff held in the company were in trust for him.”
He further accused Bertha of a breach of trust in claiming sole ownership of the company and went on to make a counterclaim for: a declaration that he was the legal and beneficial owner of 70% shares in the company, and an order restraining Bertha from holding herself out as 100% shareholder, among others.
At the end of over 5-year long trial, Justice G S Suurbaareh had this to say in his 39-page judgment: “On the evaluation of the evidence therefore, I find the 1st defendant’s case more probable than that of the plaintiff as to the shareholding in Pergah Transport Ltd. Consequently, whilst the plaintiff claim fails in its entirety, the counterclaim of the 1st defendant is granted.”
He added: “On the damages to be awarded, considering the contumelious conduct of the plaintiff and the unreasonable mental torture she has put the 1st defendant through all these years, damages is assessed at FIFTY THOUSAND GHANA CEDIS (GHC50, 000.00).”
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