Mr Patrice Unogu, the Managing Director of Global Lifting Services Nigeria Limited, said on Saturday that the Nigerian Consulate in South Africa was assisting to locate a company that took $8,000 from his firm and refused to execute the contract given to it.

Unogu’s company, which is based in Port Harcourt, is engaged in inspection of lifting equipment, certification, training and supplies.

He said this in Johannesburg, South Africa, that his firm was introduced to the South African company based in Johannesburg in 2012 to help produce a software.

`` We entered into a contractual agreement .They gave us an agreement which we filled and paid them a deposit sum of $8,000.

`` When we started, they were responding and they were sending samples of what they were doing and somewhere along the line, they stopped.

`` We tried pacifying them, after some time, they started again, but thereafter, nothing happened again,`` he said.

According to Unogu, his firm wrote the South African company several letters and even made calls but got no response.

He also said the case was reported to the South African Commercial Attache in Nigeria who advised him to write that country`s High commissioner to Nigeria and copy him.

`` After this, we decided to come to South Africa and reported the case to the Nigerian Consulate to get to the root of the matter.

`` Nigeria`s Consul General in South Africa has taken up the case and is assisting us to locate the company.

`` My company has suffered losses worth more than $500,000 because of the non delivery of the software when it was supposed to be delivered,`` he said.

Unogu said his company suffered the losses because it could not compete favourably in the market with others because of the non delivery of the software