Miss Ghana's Case To Be Fast-Tracked

By William Yaw Owusu

Wednesday, 26 July 2006

Miss Lamisi MbillahAn Accra Fast Track High Court yesterday abridged the date set for the hearing of a motion filed by Lamisi Mbillah, Miss Ghana 2005, seeking to restrain Sparrow Productions Limited (SPL) and two others from organising this year’s beauty pageant.

The motion, which also cites Shirley Frimpong Manso and Jayne Awoonor-Williams, Chief Executive and Deputy Chief Executive Officer, respectively of SPL, will be heard on July 27 instead of July 31.

It follows an ex-parte motion for reduction of time filed by Mr. Kwame Akuffo, counsel for the defendants that his clients would suffer "grave damage" if the application was heard on July 31.
The court, presided over by Mr. Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, granted the request of the defendants to bring the hearing date to July 27.

Ms. Mbillah who filed the motion through Dr. Raymond Atugubah, her counsel, is seeking an interim injunction to restrain the defendants from going ahead to organise this year’s event because SPL allegedly failed to meet their part of the contractual obligation to her for winning the 2005 crown.

In the reliefs’, Miss. Mbillah sought a declaration that the prize car (KIA Rio) "is her property and an order compelling SPL to transfer title in said 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 one million cedis for the month of July as well as cost.

Miss Ghana’s statement of case said among other things that, "unless the respondents are restrained from organising the Miss 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 extremely difficult to retrieve from the respondents the entitlements due her as Miss Ghana 2005 adding that, "it is against public interest and public policy for SPL to consistently represent to various sponsors of the Miss Ghana event and the public that they seek sponsorship for the purpose of presenting prizes to various winners and neglect to do so."

"By denying any obligation to me and Miss Ghana 2004, the SPL is seeking to unjustly enrich itself by retaining prize monies and items that were given for the benefit of and for onward transmission to various winners of the Miss Ghana event," she added.

She further said the court should order the respondents "to cease to assume further financial and resource obligations by going ahead to organize the 2006 event" since the SPL had outstanding and resource commitment to her.