George Andah, a former Deputy Minister of Communication, has won a GHc250,000 defamation suit against the Editor of Daily Post newspaper, Michael Dokosi, according to a story on citinewsroom.com published January 16, 2021, and sighted by GhanaWeb.
Michael Dokosi was sued together with Giraffe Publications, publishers of the Daily Post newspaper by the former Awutu Senya West MP in November 2018 over a Ghana Post GPS story in which the former MP was accused of causing financial loss to the state.
According to Andah, the newspaper failed to give him the opportunity to give his side of the story which accused him of being part of the committee that negotiated the Ghana Post GPS deal.
He described the story as false and damaging his hard-earned reputation.
George Andah in his suit demanded GH¢5 million in damages from Dokosi for destroying his reputation with the “false, malicious and defamatory” story.
He also asked for an unqualified apology, a retraction of the publication, and a perpetual injunction on the defendants against any such future publications.
The court in its judgement granted these reliefs but granted only GH¢200,000 in damages.
The judge further said: “I award costs of Fifty Thousand Ghana Cedis (GH¢ 50,000.00) in favour of the plaintiff assessed against the Defendant taking into consideration the posture of the defendant in refusing to attend court in blatant disregard of the court’s orders and therefore by occasioning unnecessary cost and expense to the plaintiff in his quest to prosecute this case.”
The Ghana Post GPS app was introduced by the Ghanaian government to give location addresses to all and sundry.