INSIGHT NEWSPAPER TO PAY COMPENSATION TO MINISTER

THE Accra Fast Track High Court on Friday, February9,2007, found The Insight newspaper liable for libelling the Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, Mr Hackman Owusu-Agyeman.
The court, therefore, ordered the newspaper to pay a ¢100 million compensation to the minister and ¢20 million as costs.
The newspaper was also directed to retract the libellous story in two successive issues with the same prominence given to the story.
The court further restrained the newspaper from writing any further libellous stories about Mr Owusu-Agyeman, who sued in his capacity as the then Minister of the Interior.
According to the court, the restraining order did not preclude the newspaper from writing anything about the minister but it should ensure that what was published was not defamatory.
The trial judge, Mr Justice Yaw Apau, a Court of Appeal judge with additional responsibility as a High Court judge, held that although the attitude of the newspaper, its acting editor and publishers amounted to intransigence, the court did not want to do anything to burden the newspaper, since the plaintiff never asked for aggravated damages.
Mr Owusu-Agyeman found a story carried by The Insight newspaper in its October 6-7, 2004 issue, to the effect that he had threatened PHC Motors that it would not benefit from any future government contract for refusing to sign a dubious contract.
The contract would have enabled the company to supply to the government 150 Tata pick-ups, valued at $5 million dollars, intended for the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO).
The import of the story, according to the court, was that because of the dubious nature of the contract, the executing agency, PHC Motors, pulled out, as a result of which the plaintiff allegedly issued his threat.
Not satisfied with the story, since no such contract had been signed between the Interior Ministry and the company, the plaintiff sued the writer, Apisawu Peter Kojo, then acting editor of The Insight, the newspaper as an entity and Militant Publications, the publishers.
He claimed ¢2 billion in damages and an order of perpetual injunction to restrain the defendants from publishing any libellous material about him.
Mr Owusu-Agyeman claimed that the defendants knew that the publication about him was false and did so to impute that he was of a questionable character, dishonest and corrupt.
He said they unethically reported that he exploited his position as a public officer for personal gain, among others, and also issued an ultimatum to PHC Motors that it would not benefit from any future government contracts.
According to him, the false story had tarnished his image and hard-won reputation, making him to spend lots of resources to clear his name, both in Ghana and outside, since the newspaper had a wide circulation and was also on the Internet.
The defendants denied that the publication was intended to libel the plaintiff and that the words published were fair comment on issues of public interest.
They said the plaintiff was a public office holder and, being social commentators, they were obliged to comment on his actions because he did not adhere to specific procurement procedures.
In its judgement, the court held that the freedom and independence of the press was regulated by the 1992 Constitution, which also provided that the power of the media should not be used to the detriment of others in society.
It held that the defendants, through the acting editor, who testified in the case, did not provide any document to support the story and that plaintiff never engaged in any contract with PHC.
It said the plaintiff did indicate that PHC Motors had brought an invoice but there was no final contract which would have warranted the supply of the said vehicles and, therefore, the issue of fraud did not come in at all.
Furthermore, it held that the claim by the defence that the contract was not transparent and that it was a matter of public interest was not relevant.
The court said that the fight for accountability in the system was not peculiar to the press and that when it came to commenting on issues of public interest, the press was not superior to the ordinary Ghanaian on the street.
It said the comment would have been fair if, indeed, the contract was found to be dubious. What the defendants did, it said, amounted to a libellous statement of fact.
According to the court, the conditions for fair comment, namely, that the facts should be truly stated and they should not contain any imputation of fraud and honest expression of opinion, did not arise in the instant case because the defendants never led evidence to show that there was a contract.
It said what was published were allegations of fact which were not true and for that matter the defence could not avail itself of the defence of fair comment.
Instead of the defendants apologising to the plaintiff for the wrong done him, the court said, they rather sought leave from it and amended their statement of defence to aggravate the issue.