By William Yaw Owusu
Saturday, 29 July 2006
Sparrow Productions Limited (SPL), organisers of the Miss Ghana Beauty Pageant, have complied with the orders by an Accra Fast Track High Court to enable the 2006 Miss Ghana competition to take place today.
The court presided over by Mr. Justicen Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, on Thursday ordered SPL to deposit the 2005 prize money of 10,000 dollars, transfer all documents covering the KIA Rio in the name of the beauty queen and deposit the July stipend of ¢1 million at the court’s registry by the close of work on that day before this year’s Miss Ghana finale could take place.
All these have been complied with, Rowland Atta-Kesson one of the lawyers for Miss Ghana 2005, Lamisi Mbillah told Times.
Miss Mbillah filled an interlocutory injunction on July 21, against the SPL and two of its top executives.
She had sought a court order to restrain SPL alongside its executives, Shirley Frimpong Manso and Jayne Awoonor-Williams, from organising this year’s beauty pageant because the defendants had failed to fulfill their part of the contractual obligation to her for winning the 2005 crown.
The court had further ordered the SPL to take steps to ensure that Ms. Mbillah was furnished with airline ticket to enable her to travel to Poland to compete in the upcoming Miss World beauty pageant.
It, however, ruled that should Ms. Mbillah lose the substantive case, she should return the KIA Rio in its original form to the SPL.
In an interview with the Times yesterday, Mr. Atta-Kesson, said a search at the court’s registry revealed that the defendants have deposited a cheque for the ¢1 million July stipend as well as the $ 10,000, prize money.
He said though the SPL had not deposited the title deed, there was a notice of change of ownership from the DVLA applied by the defendants, which will be ready on August 4.
"We have the one-million cedi cheque at the moment. What is outstanding is for us to take administrative steps to collect the 10 thousands dollars from the court’s registry", he said.
"From the registry, there is a clear evidence that the defendants have taken steps to comply with the orders of the court", he added.
The hearing of the motion was set for July 31, but Mr. Kwame Akuffo, counsel for the defendants, filed an ex-parte application to abridge the date to July 27, and this was granted by the court.
Among the reliefs sought by Ms Mbillah in her substantive motion was a declaration that the prize car is her property and an order compelling SPL to transfer title deeds of the car to her.
She further sought an order to compel SPL to pay to her the prize money of 10,000 dollars with interest to date and another order to compel SPL to furnish her with the prize travel ticket, consisting of an Accra-London-Accra air ticket from Astraeus Airline, and to pay her monthly stipend of ¢1 million for the month of July, in addition to cost.
In her statement of claim, Miss Mbillah said, "Unless the respondents are restrained from organizing the Ms Ghana 2006, event they will assume obligations to the prospective Miss Ghana 2006 and not meet it and also assume greater financial commitment and may be unable to meet the current commitment to me."
She said when her reign comes to an end, it will be difficult to retrieve from the respondents the entitlements due her as Miss Ghana 2005.
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