Gazza, TTA court battle rages on

THE court battle between Lazarus Shiimi, better known as Gazza, and the Trinity Transaction Advisory (TTA) continues and the matter will be heard in September.

Gazza and TTA are fighting over commission fees of N$589 041, which the consulting company TTA alleges it was entitled to receive after securing a deal of N$2 561 050 million for Gazza with Namibia Breweries Limited (NBL) and Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC).

TTA alleges that it only received consulting fees of N$180 250.

In his recent witness statement filed in the High Court of Namibia, Gazza is arguing that Gokulan Thambapilai, the sole member of the company, failed to deliver on a number of deadlines and was extremely rude towards him and his GMP partners.

“My GMP commercial partners were not happy. Thambapilai was also extremely rude to me and GMP staff members. He started sending angry and insulting voice recordings, which have been discovered on our GMP WhatsApp group. He did not deliver at all and the contracts with the employees remain outstanding to date.

“On more than one occasion by oral audios and written text messages sent to me, Thambapilai said he is no longer interested in the agreement and cancelled it. It is for those reasons that even though GMP initially paid him for services rendered, it stopped paying him.

“Further to that, I did not see why I had to pay him if he was not delivering. In addition, after receipt of a letter of demand for payment of the alleged outstanding amount, I subsequently sought legal advice. I was then advised that the agreement we had entered into was contrary to the law,” said Gazza.

Gazza also disputed the impression Thambapilai created that he secured the two deals for Gazza.

“The agreement has existed since 2006; his task was to ensure that the agreement was properly drafted and take care of the legal aspects relating to the agreement. The amount was not increased because of anything that he did, but the amount was always gradually increased on a yearly or periodic basis,” Gazza stated in court documents.

However, in Thambapilai's witness statement, he argued that Gazza decided to stop paying him money owed on signed contracts with NBL and KFC.

“I advised him that we can part ways once the KFC campaign was executed. I specifically cautioned him that the deal hung in the balance, given the way timelines were getting delayed. He ignored my plea in this regard. I had crafted the agreement to ensure that the monies to be paid would be a guaranteed sum, and I was concerned that Mr Shiimi would lose out on this agreement if I did not see it through to completion.

“Gazza ghosted me and refused to respond to my messages and calls to resolve the way forward. I then requested his uncle to intervene as the mediator and attempt to negotiate an amicable resolution. He failed to respond to my settlement offer wherein I was willing to write-off a portion of monies owed. I then told the mediator that I will proceed to litigation,”

Thambapilai stated in his witness statement.

– Unwrap.online