By Politico staff writer
Edmond Abu, a Civil Society activist representing both first and second plaintiffs in a case against three mobile telecommunication companies has told Politico that he has 15 witnesses lined up to testify in the matter against Africell, Orange, Sierratel as service providers and also NATCOM as regulator.
He said full trial is expected in the coming weeks and had asked that it be streamed live as contained in a widely shared written request from him to the Chief Justice.
Serving as first plaintiff representing his Native Consortium organisation and him as second plaintiff as well, Abu said the case is in the interest of the public and would want the mobile telecom companies to pay what he called punitive damages to subscribers since failing to honour an agreement in 2017.
In his letter to the Chief Justice Babatunde Edwards, the civil society activist said the public deserves the right to know about the proceedings through live streaming and broadcast on radio, television and the internet as is being done by countries around the world.
He claimed the judiciary had said the matter will come to a close in the next one month and pleaded that consumers be given the privilege of seeing justice being done through live streaming which he said is now the global trend.
He made reference to the recent live broadcast from the Supreme Court of the 2018 elections petition ruling and of proceedings at the 2019-2020 Commissions of Inquiry, and said the Native Consortium would be ready to foot the bills for live coverage of the case.
He however told Politico that the Chief Justice had expressed reservations that once such a privilege was made to them every one would want to get the same.
On 23 March 2017 Abu on behalf of his organisation took the mobile telecommunication companies to task at a public dialogue forum organised by NATCOM held at the Bintumani conference hall in Freetown over a range of poor services consumers including a poor internet penetration rate at the time of 12 percent, as compared to at least 50 percent that Abu said obtained then in other developing countries. He stated that they had asked that the voice tariff per minute be reverted to 410 Leones from the 610 Leones increase.
The NATCOM leadership at the time was accused of being reluctant to take decisive action against the companies even though Orange was fined 750,000 dollars and Africell and Sierratel 450,000 dollars and 200,000 dollars respectively for poor performance in service delivery. Abu said audited reports have proven that the companies were not paying the fines. He also explained how the companies flouted the order by NATCOM that they give 72 hours of free calls to millions of their subscribers, by not only giving 6 hours but decided to limit such calls between subscribers of the same company.
Abu said up to this day the voice tarrif still remains at 610 Leones per minute. He pointed out that since the 2017 public dialogue forum the mobile telecom providers have generated a huge sum of money from the consumers as a result, which he said was unfair on the people. He said those were some of the concerns the people have and for which they have gone to the court of law for redress.
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