What started as a Shs40 million loan in 2016 slowly turned into a bitter legal fight over a truck, missed loan payments, allegations of unfair sale, and finally a courtroom defeat for businesswoman Regina Nalule.
Let us start from the beginning.
On April 8, 2016, Nalule borrowed Shs40 million from Vision Fund Uganda, a microfinance institution that is a subsidiary of World Vision. She was supposed to repay the money within 24 months.
To secure the loan, she staked her Isuzu truck (UAX 753S) together with her monthly rental income of Shs1.8 million.
Initially, Nalule serviced the loan without problems. But trouble started in early 2017 when the truck reportedly broke down. At the time, she claims she had repaid at least Shs 23 million.
Since she was repaying the loan using money earned from the truck, Nalule started defaulting. After several reminders, Vision Fund moved to recover its money.
The company impounded her truck, conducted a valuation, and advertised it for public auction. Vision Fund eventually sold it on July 19, 2017, for Shs35 million.
Nalule was bitter that she had not been given more time to clear the loan. She accused Vision Fund of acting fraudulently and unlawfully.
She argued that the company sold the truck at a giveaway price, failed to notify her guarantors properly, and never gave a proper account of the money realised from the sale.
On November 21, 2023, Nalule took Vision Fund to court seeking orders to have her truck returned or alternatively to be awarded Shs150 million, which she claimed was the market value of the vehicle.
She was represented by PACE Advocates, while Vision Fund was represented by Nuwajuna Associated Advocates.
At the start of the case, Vision Fund’s lawyers raised a technical issue. They said Nalule had filed the case outside the legally permitted time.
The lawyers said the truck was sold in July 2017, and since the law gives a person six years to file a contract-based claim, they argued that Nalule’s case expired in July 2023.
They said the case was filed approximately six years, four months, and two days after the alleged breach.
Nalule’s lawyers did not directly answer the limitation argument in their written submissions.
They said the summons was issued on November 22, 2023, and served on December 13, 2023, exactly within the required 21 days.
They narrated how a process server reportedly went to Vision Fund’s offices in Makerere Kavule along Bombo Road and was told that the company lawyer, identified as Cissy, was absent.
According to Nalule’s lawyers, the process server returned the following day and, after speaking to Cissy by phone, left the documents with a secretary.
They even tabled photographs allegedly showing that they had served Vision Fund on December 13.
Vision Fund disputed this version and insisted service was actually effected on December 14, one day outside the permitted period.
Its lawyers argued that the photographs were “man-made images” and accused Nalule of concocting evidence after objections had already been raised.
Justice Isaac Teko, who heard the case, sided with Nalule on this issue.
“The evidence on record supports a finding that service was effected on 13th December 2023, being the last day of the twenty-one-day period, and that the service was therefore within time,” he said.
Still, he said that the finding changed nothing because the suit itself had already been filed outside the six-year window.
“No exception to the limitation bar was pleaded in the plaint, no reply was filed to the written statement of defence addressing the preliminary objection, and no explanation was offered in submissions for the delay,” Justice Teko said.
He said the court was satisfied that the case was filed outside the six-year limitation period prescribed under Section 3(1)(a) of the Limitation Act.”
That finding alone was enough to defeat the entire case.
Yet while the case was dismissed on limitation grounds, Justice Teko still discussed the merits of the dispute.
He said Nalule may have raised serious questions about the sale of the truck.
Nalule claimed she bought the truck for Shs150 million. An earlier valuation report allegedly placed its forced sale value at Shs80 million, but Vision Fund sold it for only Shs35 million.
Nalule also produced evidence from a mechanic who reportedly said the engine had already been replaced before the sale.
Justice Teko said that those facts raised troubling questions.
“A sale price of Shs 35 million with a forced sale value of Shs 80 million, even accounting for depreciation and the engine breakdown, would raise serious questions about whether Vision Fund took sufficient care to obtain the best price,” he said.
He stopped short of declaring Vision Fund’s actions fraudulent.
Even after these heartening statements from the judge, Nalule walked away empty-handed because the case had been filed too late.
