LESOTHO Communications Authority (LCA) has taken a swipe at the Vodacom Lesotho (VCL), accusing it of unlawfully acquiring an urgent court order that bars the authority from intervening or making any decisions pertaining to the telecommunications company until the bitter rivalry between both parties has been resolved.
news
Oct. 31, 2020
NEO SENOKO
3 min read
VCL illegally attained court order - LCA
LCA boss 'Mamarame Matela
The court order was granted following a laborious scuffle between the two, which saw the LCA undertaking to revoke VCL’s unified license.
This was after the telecommunication giant had failed to comply with a directive by LCA to pay a penalty of M40 200 000 by October 7.
VCL was earlier accused of deliberate non-compliance, dishonesty and lack of remorse towards the laws by LCA, and this prompted the authority to slap the company with a whooping M134 million in penalties.
Thirty per cent of the penalty was payable immediately, with the remaining 70 per cent suspended for five years provided that VCL does not commit any further contraventions of its regulatory obligations during the said period.
In the event the company fails to comply, LCA shall proceed to revoke the unified license.
Accordingly, VCL was directed to pay M40 200 000 upfront, with the remaining M93 800 000 suspended for five years.
But the telecommunication giant took the matter to the High Court where the court order was issued barring LCA from any further intervention.
On Friday, LCA released a statement, accusing VCL of illegally obtaining the court order.
“LCA counsel filed Notice of Intention to oppose at the Registry of the High Court and served Counsel for Vodacom Lesotho as far back as 12 October.”
“As at close of business on 22 October, the court file still did not have any documents in it. It is not clear where copies of the application were and the file had not been handed over to the judge by close of business on 22 October,” the LCA said.
The authority further stated that, as far back as October 15, its counsel sent correspondence to VCL noting that the latter had referred to annexures in its founding affidavit that had not been included in the record that led to the irregular unilateral grant of the interim court order by a court that, in their view lacks jurisdiction to hear commercial matters.
LCA counsel requested VCL counsel to provide the annexures to enable them to respond, since the documents were used to obtain the interim court order.
“The letter was received by Vodacom Lesotho counsel on 15 October 2020, but as at 22 October, Vodacom Lesotho Counsel had not provided the documents to LCA Counsel ahead of the hearing on 23 October.
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Justice Thasanqa Nomnqcongo
“On 22 October when contacted telephonically by LCA Counsel, Vodacom Lesotho Counsel undertook to send the documents to LCA Counsel by e-mail once Vodacom had sent them but he had still not sent them by morning of 23 October 2020. The incomplete documents were received on 27 October,” LCA added.
The authority further shows that once it had filed the notice of intention to oppose on October 12, its lawyer attended at court to arrange for matter to be allocated a judge, a responsibility that lies with counsel for VCL as applicant but the latter failed to do.
The matter was then moved from Justice Thamsanqa Nomnqcongo and allocated to Justice Moahloli.
On October 23, LCA attended with its counsel to find the situation unchanged. That is, there were still no documents in the court file and it is the duty of VCL counsel as applicant to ensure that.
As a result, there was no return to service by the Deputy Sheriff in the court file because he had not been paid his fees for services by VCL counsel.
The impact of the court order is that LCA cannot adjudicate any and all alleged contraventions by VCL until the matter has been finalised.
But the LCA has said it is aware of widespread complaints from consumers on social media regarding unilateral depletion of their airtime balances by VCL without explanation or reimbursement, which arose before and after October 9 when the court order was issued.
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