{"id":153690,"date":"2024-02-20T11:35:08","date_gmt":"2024-02-20T11:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2024\/02\/20\/sml-sues-fourth-estate-manasseh-gh%c2%a210m\/"},"modified":"2024-02-20T11:35:08","modified_gmt":"2024-02-20T11:35:08","slug":"sml-sues-fourth-estate-manasseh-gh%c2%a210m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2024\/02\/20\/sml-sues-fourth-estate-manasseh-gh%c2%a210m\/","title":{"rendered":"SML Sues Fourth Estate, Manasseh GH\u00a210m"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Christian Sottie, SML Boss<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Strategic Mobilisation Ghana Limited (SML), the company accused of receiving a \u2018shady\u2019 10-year contract from the Ministry of Finance, has initiated a GH\u00a210 million lawsuit against the <strong><em>Fourth Estate<\/em><\/strong> and its Editor-in-chief Manasseh Azure for defamation.<\/p>\n<p>The company, in a suit filed before a High Court in Accra, avers that a publication of <strong><em>Fourth Estate<\/em><\/strong>\u2019s documentary titled \u2018The GH\u00a23bn Lie\u2019 has defamed it and damaged its reputation within the corporate world.<\/p>\n<p>It avers, among others that the publication which were made on the media house\u2019s YouTube channel and subsequently published on its website, has evoked feeling of hatred and outrage towards it in the eyes of the public and right thinking members of society worldwide.<\/p>\n<p>The <strong><em>Fourth Estate<\/em><\/strong>, a news website operated by the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), in a documentary had claimed that the company was awarded a \u2018questionable\u2019 and \u2018shady\u2019 10-year contract.<\/p>\n<p>The website claimed in its documentary that its investigation had uncovered that at the time players in the downstream petroleum sector were questioning the relevance of SML\u2019s involvement, the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, initiated a more \u201coutrageous deal that would entitle the company to over $100 million every year for the next 10 years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The <strong><em>Fourth Estate<\/em><\/strong> documentary also claimed that SML made false claims of saving Ghana billions of credits through its operations in the downstream petroleum sector.<\/p>\n<p>SML, in its suit, said it issued two rejoinders to <strong><em>Fourth Estate<\/em><\/strong> \u201csetting the record straight to the public as part of its dedication to truth, transparency, accountability and integrity in its operations and dealings.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It however, points out that in spite of that, the <strong><em>Fourth Estate<\/em><\/strong> continued to publish articles attacking its contract with the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), describing it as \u2018shady\u2019 and \u2018questionable\u2019 \u201cwithout providing to its audience any justification or bases whatsoever for those labels\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>SML avers that the <strong><em>Fourth Estate<\/em><\/strong>\u2019s \u2018false publications\u2019 about its contract with the GRA has resulted in public reactions and backlash which has further hurt, marred and damaged its reputation in the eyes of Ghanaians,\u00a0 causing distrust and a lack of confidence in the company\u2019s operations in the petroleum sector.<\/p>\n<p>The suit says an instance of such backlash and hatred is when former President John Dramani Mahama said he would cancel the company\u2019s contract if re-elected because it is shady as reported by defendants.<\/p>\n<p>It further avers that the onslaught of backlash from the public as a result of the <strong><em>Fourth Estate<\/em><\/strong>\u2019s publication has adversely impacted SML\u2019s operations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPlaintiff says that although it published rejoinders to the defendants\u2019 false reportage, the defendants have failed and\/or refused to retract and apologise to the plaintiff for the false information they have consistently peddled,\u201d the suit adds.<\/p>\n<p>It is, therefore, seeking a total of GH\u00a210 million \u2013 GH\u00a21 million as general damages and another GH\u00a29 million as exemplary damages for \u201creckless and malicious report\u201d by the <strong><em>Fourth Estate<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>It is also asking for a perpetual injunction against the publication of further defamatory material by the defendants, a retraction and apology, and any other orders deemed appropriate by the court.<\/p>\n<p><strong>BY Gibril Abdul Razak<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!-- AI CONTENT END 2 -->\n\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Christian Sottie, SML Boss \u00a0 Strategic Mobilisation Ghana Limited (SML), the company accused of receiving a \u2018shady\u2019 10-year contract from the Ministry of Finance, has initiated a GH\u00a210 million lawsuit against the Fourth Estate and its Editor-in-chief Manasseh Azure for defamation. The company, in a suit filed before a High Court in Accra, avers that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":133326,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-153690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-local-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>SML Sues Fourth Estate, Manasseh GH\u00a210m - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2024\/02\/20\/sml-sues-fourth-estate-manasseh-gh\u00a210m\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"SML Sues Fourth Estate, Manasseh GH\u00a210m - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Christian Sottie, SML Boss \u00a0 Strategic Mobilisation Ghana Limited (SML), the company accused of receiving a \u2018shady\u2019 10-year contract from the Ministry of Finance, has initiated a GH\u00a210 million lawsuit against the Fourth Estate and its Editor-in-chief Manasseh Azure for defamation. 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