RedForce, Rundu council N$9.2m lawsuit judgment postponed to 13 March

Debt collection firm RedForce Debt Management and the Rundu Town Council will have to wait two more weeks for a judgement on a claim for N$9.2 million RedForce is pursuing against the council in the Windhoek High Court.

The judgement on RedForce’s claim against the Rundu Town Council was scheduled to be delivered on Friday, but its delivery has been postponed to 13 March, as it is not ready yet.

RedForce is suing the town council for a total of N$9.2 million as a result of an agreement concluded between RedForce and the council in August 2020.

The town council is opposing RedForce’s claim.

The court has been informed that in terms of the agreement, RedForce was to collect debts due to the town council on the local authority’s behalf, and was also to collect data from residents of Rundu on behalf of the town council.

RedForce is claiming the town council agreed to provide it with the necessary support to enable it to achieve the objective of collecting debts due to the council.

According to RedForce, it notified the town council on seven occasions between May 2021 and November 2022 that it had an obligation in terms of the agreement to provide the necessary support to RedForce.

However, members of the council “were actively sabotaging the fulfilment of the agreement and refusing to provide the necessary support”, RedForce is claiming.

The town council has informed the court that this allegation is “vehemently denied”.

RedForce is also claiming that members of the council held meetings with the local authority’s debtors to encourage them not to pay debts when requested to pay by RedForce, and that they encouraged debtors not to cooperate with RedForce when it tried to collect debts and data in terms of its agreement with the council.

In the agreement, a monthly debt collection target of N$5 million was set for RedForce, which is claiming that the council, however, tried to make it impossible for it to meet its performance target.

In a letter RedForce chief executive Julius Nyamazana sent to the council in February 2023, it was stated that RedForce had collected debts totalling about N$91 million on behalf of the town council.

In the same letter, Nyamazana informed the council that RedForce was terminating its agreement with the council – according to him because the council had first repudiated the agreement.

RedForce is claiming that it suffered damages in an amount of N$5.1 million as a result of lost income in respect of the collection of debts, and a loss of income in the sum of N$4.1 million it would have earned from data-collection services.

In a plea filed at the court, the Rundu Town Council says RedForce has failed to meet its monthly debt collection targets agreed with the council. According to the council, RedForce has “breached the terms of the agreement first, and as such approaches this court with unclean hands in respect of the very same agreement it wishes to enforce”.

The council is also claiming it had “provided the necessary support that was required by the plaintiff [RedForce] to perform optimally”, and that it “did not in any way sabotage the work” of RedForce.

The town council further says it notified RedForce in January of a breach of their agreement for failing to meet the agreed monthly debt collection target of N$5 million, and asked it to remedy the breach.

RedForce filed its claim against the town council in the Windhoek High Court in February 2023.

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