Facts
The First Appellant filed a representative suit on behalf of the other appellants against the Respondents. The First Respondent is the liquidator of Zambia Tanzania Road Services Ltd, the Second Respondent. The Appellants were all employees of the Second Respondent. During August 1985, the Second Respondent was placed into liquidation. The Second Respondent then informed the Appellants that their terminal benefits could not be paid immediately, owing to the financial state of the now liquidated Second Respondent and bearing in mind the order of preference of the various creditors. After obtaining a 'loan' from the Government of Tanzania, one of the shareholders, the Appellants were paid F Shs 32,761,927/= in total and in full and final settlement of their claims. This payment was made in July 1987, some two years after their due date in August 1985. The Appellants duly filed a suit in the court below for Shs 84,779,770/05, being in respect of `repatriation costs, luggage allowance, outstation allowance and a subsistence allowance for 664 days' based on the devaluation of the Tanzanian shilling, increased transport costs and outstation allowances which had taken place over the two-year period since the company's liquidation when the benefits were due and payable. The trial Judge found that the claims were valid, but dismissed them on the basis that the claims had not been proved as required by the Companies (Winding Up) Rules, 1929, and that therefore the entire claim was premature. The Appellants appeal on the ground that the trial Judge erred in holding that the suit was premature and that therefore there was no cause of action.
Held:
(i) For the trial Judge to have determined the validity of the claims after finding that they were premature was incorrect, since he was thereby virtually pre-empting the deecision of the liquidator.
(ii) The Companies (Winding Up) Rules, 1929, require any debt to be proved by affidavit and until this is done, there can be no cause of action.
(iii) The two claims in this suit were thus prematurely lodged.
(iv) The appeal is dismissed in its entirety, with costs.
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