Court dismisses injunction suit against Kelni GVG contract
Two individuals who marched to court to stop the implementation of the $89-million telecommunications revenue monitoring contract the government awarded to the IT firm, Kelni GVG Limited, have failed in their first legal challenge.
In a ruling yesterday, the Human Rights Division of the Accra High Court, dismissed an interlocutory application filed by the two individuals; Ms Sara Asafu-Adjaye and Mr Maximus Ametorgoh that sought to halt the implementation of the contract.
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Application
The two had filed the suit to stop the implementation of the deal, arguing that it would grant Kelni GVG access to their private data, which was a violation of their fundamental human rights to privacy.
Their interlocutory application had prayed the court to put an injunction on the deal until the court determined the substantive suit.
Read also: Court of Appeal re-affirms injunction against Kelni GVG deal
The $89m contract will allow Kelni GVG to operate a common platform that includes the NCA and the GRA by connecting the entire switch of the physical network nodes of telecommunication operators in the country.
The programme is expected to improve revenue mobilisation for the government and also check Sim box fraud.
No merit
But, in its ruling, the court held that the interlocutory application lacked merit and accordingly dismissed it.
According to the presiding judge, Mr Justice Anthony Yeboah, a Justice of the Court of Appeal with additional responsibility as a High Court judge, the applicants failed to establish a prima facie case that the deal would breach their privacy.
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The Ministry of Communications, he said had filed an affidavit in opposition to the injunction and argued that there was a filter in place that would prevent Kelni GVG from accessing irrelevant information.
Read also: Kelni GVG contract to be released today – Communications Ministry
That claim, he said, was not challenged by the telecommunications companies, which indicated that the claim was true.
Mr Justice Yeboah also ruled that on the balance of convenience, the government stood to suffer more hardships than the applicants if the injunction was granted and it (government) won the substantive case.
The applicants, he said, could be adequately compensated if the application was dismissed and they won the substantive case.
He further ruled that from the documents filed by the applicants, it was obvious that they had no personal knowledge of what the monitoring deal was about and that their application was speculative.
“You are peddling evidenceless fears,’’ he told the applicants.