Africa-Press – Uganda. A former pump attendant-turned station manager of a TotalEnergies outlet, formerly Total Uganda, has sued the multi-energy company for withholding his B2C card with fuel worth Shs11 million.
The TotalEnergies B2C Card is a prepaid card used to plan and manage expenditure on fuel, lubricants, gas and other products or services at all TotalEnergies Stations countrywide.
Mr Samuel Elungat Malinga, a former manager at Jinja Road branch, in 2020 filed a civil suit at the Chief Magistrate’s Court of Nakawa through his lawyers M/S Odeke T. & Company Advocates.
In the suit, Ms Phiona Atuhairwe, the station dealer who was running the said branch at the time, is named as the co-defendant.
Mr Malinga says in 2018, he obtained a customised B2C card from Total Uganda, which he intended to use for his private transactions and savings; however, around 2020, he realised that it had been misplaced and all efforts to trace it were futile.
“ . . . That the Plaintiff then formally wrote to the first defendant seeking a replacement of the lost card since she was the one responsible for replacement of lost cards,” the suit reads in part.
It adds: “That the Plaintiff was then asked by the first defendant to make a deposit of Shs26,800 as fees for the B2C card replacement, which he did on January 29, 2020.”
According to Mr Malinga, he was asked to pick his card after three working days, but after the days elapsed, no card was given to him and no explanation was reportedly made, compounding the hardship he says he was facing since all his savings for fending for his family and sick mother were on that B2C card.
“Following the outbreak of Covid-19, and following the government’s partial lockdown, the Plaintiff required to access his savings on the card to enable him prepare for the impending lockdown, but was totally frustrated by the defendants,” the plaint adds.
“. . . That the first defendant refused to replace the Plaintiff’s B2C fuel card with the lost data as reflected from the last transaction and is still illegally holding onto the same, causing him a lot of pain,” Mr Malinga’s plaint further states.
Mr Malinga now seeks a court order that the defendant’s actions led to breach of a clause for replacement of a lost B2C card with the last known data; an order compelling the first defendant to replace the Plaintiff’s B2C Total fuel card with all the data on January 18, 2020.
He also wants an order for punitive damages against the first defendant for the trauma he has gone through while seeking to replace his card with several pending family obligations among others.
However, the defendants, represented by S&L Advocates, in their amended written statement of defence, aver that: “The B2C card was issued and obtained through fraud by the plaintiff and as such the plaintiff was not entitled to a replacement of the said card.”
The particulars of fraud, according to the statement of defence, include; creating a card in his (Mr Malinga) names, and crediting money on the card without depositing it with the station.
A legal expert who declined to be named says the case is similar to one having an account with a bank, obtains an ATM card, it gets lost and when seeking a replacement, the bank asks the customer where he or she got the money deposited on the account.
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