Parties settle Maseru lunch-pack payment dispute for M300, leaving delivery count unresolved

Lineo Ramathe and Thabo Mokhele have settled their dispute over an outstanding lunch-order bill on terms requiring a M300 payment within five business days after written acceptance. Ramathe had sought M600 in proceedings before the local civil court in Maseru; the recorded resolution is a settlement, not a judicial ruling on how many meals were delivered.

The disagreement concerned five lunch packs ordered for staff training. Mokhele accepted the order and the M60 price per pack but maintained that only 25 of the 30 packs arrived. The agreement resolves the payment claim without an admission that the full order was delivered.

The recorded terms provide for payment of M300 within five business days after written acceptance and a full and final settlement of claims arising from this order. They expressly preserve the absence of an admission that all 30 packs were delivered.

That distinction separates the financial resolution from the disputed delivery count. The payment matches the balance Mokhele accepted as owing for 25 packs, but the settlement does not establish that his account of the shortage was correct. The record does not say whether written acceptance or payment has since occurred.

Ramathe's claim was that she supplied all 30 packs at the agreed price. With the total order worth M1,800 and M1,200 already paid in advance, she sought the remaining M600.

Mokhele disputed only the charge for five packs. His position was that the delivery-sheet signature acknowledged receipt of the bags, rather than confirming a count of every meal inside them. He maintained that the contents were counted afterward and that only 25 packs were found.

The signed sheet supported an acknowledgment of delivery, while a phone message reporting the shortage was sent 18 minutes after the sheet's recorded time. Those documents framed the competing accounts, but neither was given a judicial interpretation in the supplied record.

The order and advance payment were documented in a WhatsApp exchange. Mokhele's account was that the bags were signed for before their contents were counted and that Ramathe did not reply to the shortage message that day.

The record also leaves a gap between receipt and counting: Mokhele was not watching the person who signed throughout that period and could not rule out packs being taken after delivery. That possibility is not a finding that anyone removed them. Whether surveillance cameras were present at the business remains unknown.

With no courtroom testimony or judgment recorded, the settlement ends the claims arising from the order without deciding what the signature proved or where any shortage occurred.