Court Halts MTN Text Go 2010 Promo

The Executive Director of Consumer Advocacy Ghana, Mr. Kofi Owusu-Hene, has sought a court injunction against Scancom Ghana limited, operators of MTN, on their promotion �MTN Text Go to 2010 promotion�, until the final determination of a suit filed at the Accra High Court. He contends that Scancom manipulates or has deliberately programmed the system for the benefit of certain participants and to the detriment of others, and that the system Scancom operates, is defective. According to him the raffle began about 5 months ago without clear explanation, which was not supposed to be so. �It seems MTN is cheating Ghanaians�they have infringed upon the right of Ghanaians by not involving the Gaming Commission to oversee the raffle,� he told PEACEFM News in an interview. Mr. Owusu-hene also known as Kofi Kapito made comparison to another mobile network which organized a raffle and declared a winner in the full glare of Ghanaians, without cheating in the stipulated time given, adding that under normal circumstance, a raffle should not exceed 3 months but Scancom Ghana has exceeded that. �They are entitled to do anything they want, but it has to be according to the law� The Gaming Commission has laws governing raffle draws,� he pointed out. Kofi Kapito disclosed that Scancom operates a game of chance and conducts its weekly draws without a license and without being controlled, monitored, regulated, or supervised by the Gaming Commission as required by law. Mr. Kofi Owusu-Hene who is a subscriber of the company, said, he has regularly participated in the promotion� since its inception, and keenly watched the weekly draws. �After carefully studying the winning phone numbers published over the past several weeks by Scancom, I have formed the opinion that the company is perpetuating a huge and gigantic fraud on the Ghanaian public�.For the period beginning 19th October, 2009 and ending 24th October, 2009 one subscriber incredibly won 9 prizes � two 3.5 G high speed Modem, Jix mobile handsets, and one GH�10 airtime voucher, a probability that is so mathematically remote that it is unreal� The same subscriber had, for the period 28th September, 2009, to 4th October, 2009 won three prizes,� he stated. He disclosed that the same subscriber appear to be winning �prizes� repeatedly, day after day, week after week. Kofi Kapito is therefore seeking from the court a declaration that the 50GHp automatically deducted from participants phone credit, is money risked or hazarded on a gaming activity in terms of the Gaming Act, 2006 (Act 721). He is also asking the court to compel Scancom to refund with interest all moneys deducted from the public�s phone credit on all occasions.