Court consolidates suit by MP Mpaka against telecoms, UCC

The parties to the suit represented by their lawyers and Mwine Mpakas lawyer, Fox Odoi agreed that both petition could be heard under the same judge.

Kampala, Uganda | URN | The Civil Division of the High Court in Kampala will concurrently hear the suits in which Western MP, Mwine Mpaka sued telecom Companies and Uganda Communications Commission. The Court sitting on Wednesday agreed to have the two suits consolidated for hearing.

The defendants represented by their lawyers together with Mwine Mpaka’s lawyer, Fox Odoi agreed that both petitions could be heard by the same judge.

Lawyers representing MTN, Bank of Uganda and Uganda Communications Commission while appearing before Deputy Court Registrar Joy Kabagye, indicated that they had reached a consensus with Mpaka to consolidate the applications and hear the main application since they all seek the same orders.Mpaka’s lawyer Fox Odoi Oywelowo had no objection to the submissions.

When the interim application was filed, Court summoned the accused companies to appear on Monday to lay their defences on the said matter. However, only MTN through their lawyer Yona Tumusingyize was able to present his defence.

Tumusingyize objected the application on grounds that MTN has a number of customers who cannot all suffer because of one incidence which happened to one person out of the 11 million customers.He said while the rights of the applicant have to be looked at, the rights of other subscribers needed to be considered too.

Tumusingyize acknowledged that Mpaka’s phone was hacked into. He said the two suspects Nasser Kigenyi and Henry Magembe in the matter are being prosecuted by the Buganda Road Court.

Abdul Salaam Waiswa represented Uganda Communications Commission while Bank of Uganda was represented by Barnabas Tumusingize and Eric Mugarura.

The Consolidation was granted by Kabagye and ordered the parties to proceed with the main application which is to be heard on 18th April 2018 before Lady Justice Margaret Oguli Oumo.

Mwine Mpaka in late March claimed that his sim card was hacked into while he was on a foreign trip and that the fraudsters then used his sim card to solicit for mobile money from an unsuspecting person in his phone contacts.

He claims that over forty million shillings were collected as a result of the hacking into his sim card.

Mwine Mpaka then sued MTN Uganda, Uganda Communications Commission and Bank of Uganda for failure to regulate mobile money transactions his sim card when it was hacked into.

He early this month also filed another application seeking immediate orders to stop the Uganda Communications Commission from continuing with the process of renewal of MTN Uganda’s license pending the disposal of the main application which was filed on March 23, 2018.