Accra, July 24, GNA- Mr Richmond Aggrey, a businessman, who has sued Scancom Ghana Limited, operators of MTN, over a dispute over shares in the company, on Thursday said he left the country for Nigeria in 1999 due to political pressure.
He was answering questions under cross-examination by Mr Felix Ntrakwah, counsel for Investment Consortium Holdings of South Africa (Investcom), at the Commercial Division of the High Court in Accra. Mr Aggrey told the court presided over by Mrs Justice Barbara Ackah-Yensu, that whilst outside the country, he petitioned President John Agyekum Kufuor on the issue, because he felt the same pressure that was used to get him out of the country could be used to bring him back. At the court's last sitting, Mr Aggrey who owned 20 per cent shares in the company, testified before the court that he had to leave Ghana for Nigeria.
He explained that it was because he feared for his life, after former President Jerry John Rawlings had openly called him names in his speech at the Emancipation Day Celebration.
Mr Aggrey had joined Investcom, the majority shareholders of MTN, and Grandview Management to the suit, over their unlawful take-over of his 20 per cent shares in Scancom Ghana Limited. He said he disagreed with a suggestion by Mr Ntrakwah that the speech by former President Rawlings neither contained any threat nor put pressure on Scancom.
Mr Aggrey said he disagreed with counsel's suggestion to him that petitions he sent to President Kufuor, Head of the National Communications Authority, and the Minister of Communications, were never responded to because they were of no merit.
Asked by counsel whether after sending those petitions he received any responses, Mr Aggrey replied that he sent the petitions at different times, and that anytime he did, the company invited him for a redress. He told the court that at a point in time, he was picked up and detained by operatives of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) for 18 months, without any apparent reason.
Mr Aggrey, was however, quick to add that at that time, he had no association with Scancom.
He agreed with a suggestion by Mr Ntrakwah that from the time former President Rawlings delivered his Emancipation Day speech up to today, Scancom has been operational and added that management of the company took right decisions to enable it to survive.
Asked by counsel what his role in Scancom was, Mr Aggrey said as Vice Chairman and a Ghanaian Director of Scancom who resided in West Africa, his duty was to stay closer to the Lebanese Directors of the company, and to give them right interpretations, and in general suggest to them the building of the company, in terms of human resources. In answer to another question by counsel whether he transferred his shares in the company, Mr Aggrey replied in the negative, his reason being that he was not comfortable with the transfer arrangement. He continues with his evidence under cross-examination on Friday, July 25.
