IMANI Africa President, Franklin Cudjoe
President of IMANI Africa, Franklin Cudjoe one of the applicants contesting the propriety of the Kelni GVG contract says it is likely they will be advancing further their litigation at the doorstep of the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice(CHRAJ) soon.
Although the parties have filed notices of discontinuation of the cases, Cudjoe intimates the matter is not over yet as being claimed by the defendants because the value for money aspect of the matter is still unsettled, a reason why they did not agree to a consent judgment so as not to be caught up in a “judicial estoppel” in the future should they decide to pursue the case further.
“I must however add that we did not want to have a consent judgment as part of the settlement because we did not want to endanger our CHRAJ option through any kind of judicial estoppel since we have yet to obtain concessions on the Value for Money part.
“Once again, on privacy, we have a concession that the Telecom Chamber shall have independent access to the monitoring platform to audit that only signals but no content are being monitored. This is not substantially different from the kinds of technical audits a court would have had to order if the case had proceeded to finality,” Cudjoe wrote on his Facebook page hours ago.
The plaintiffs, particularly IMANI have been fighting government challenging the $89m contract signed between the Ministry of Communication and the Kelni GvG.
The think tank, among other things, maintains the contract was inflated, with no value for money audit.