Court saves another sh28b workers money

Jun 27, 2013

A bill of costs amounting to sh29b presented for taxation by a city lawyer for representing NSSF against Alcon has been rejected and slashed to sh1.2b.

 By Vision Reporter  

A bill of costs amounting to sh29b, which Kampala senior lawyer, Dr Joseph Byamugisha, had presented for taxation for representing NSSF against Alcon International Limited, has been rejected and slashed to sh1.2b.


The High Court Commercial Division deputy registrar, Thadeus Opesen, who is also the court’s tax master, ruled on Tuesday that Dr Byamugisha had filed the bill out of a misconception.

“I shall not go into the merits and demerits of this bill, but suffice to say that I think it was filed out of misconception. It is dismissed in its entirety.

In my own view, the amount of sh233,333,334 already paid by NSSF to the applicant shall be able to cater for all the efforts he put in to prepare for civil appeal No.15 of 2009, which he never argued at all for the respondent,” Opesen ruled.
Andrew Kasirye represented NSSF at the hearing of the taxation application.

NSSF executive director, Richard Byarugaba said: “This is a tremendous achievement by NSSF because after saving sh60b against Alcon International Limited at the Supreme Court, we have been able to save over sh28b, which is another substantial amount of money for our members against the taxed bill of costs by the lawyers.”  

However, Dr Byamugisha immediately instructed his lawyers, MMAKS Advocates to appeal the ruling to a judge of the Commercial Division High Court.  

“Our client is wholly dissatisfied with the ruling on the taxation and intends to appeal to a judge of the High Court. We request for the proceedings and the ruling to enable us file the appeal,” Byamugisha’s lawyers’ notice filed on the same day reads.

It was said that the bill Byamugisha had sought to be taxed arose when NSSF instructed him to prosecute an appeal on its behalf in the Supreme Court in which Alcon International Limited lost.  However, it is also alleged that as an advance payment for that work, NSSF paid a total of sh233,333,334, which was not disputed.

However, the registrar said that in his mind, Dr Byamugisha never appeared in court to argue on behalf of NSSF.  It is said that before the hearing of civil appeal No 15 of 2009, NSSF withdrew instruction from the lawyer, who demanded to be paid for his legal services relating to the appeal, which the fund allegedly refused to pay.

The court observed that that at the hearing of the appeal No 15 of 2009 senior lawyer Godfrey Sserunkuuma Lule, Barnabas Tumusingize, David Nambale and Principal State Attorney Patricia Mutesi and Brenda Ntambirweki represented NSSF, while Dr Byamugisha represented architects Sentoogo and Partners.                                                              
   

 

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