Court dismisses injunction motion against Kelni GVG contract

The Human Rights Division of an Accra High Court has dismissed an application for interlocutory injunction against the implementation of the $89 million Kelni GVG contract on grounds that it lacked merit and failed to establish a prima facie case.

The contract seeks to provide a common platform to monitor revenue patterns of telecommunication companies in the country.

In a ruling on Tuesday, the Human Rights Division of an Accra High Court, dismissed an interlocutory application filed by the two individuals; Ms Sara Asafu-Adjaye and Maximus Ametorgoh that sought to halt the implementation of the contract the government awarded to Kelni GVG Limited.

They argue 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.

The will allow Kelni GVG to operate a common platform that includes the National Communications Authority (NCA) and the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) by connecting to the entire switch of the physical network nodes of telecommunication operators in the country to undertake real time monitoring.

The presiding judge, 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.

According to him, the Ministry of Communications 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.

He noted that the applicants did not challenge it, which indicated that the claim was true.

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.

He noted that the applicants 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.