Philip Addison
Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By William Yaw Owusu
Monday, June 3, 2013.
Electoral
Commission (EC) Chairman, Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan will most likely be grilled
today when Phillip Addison, lead counsel of the petitioners in the Presidential
Election Petition ongoing at the Supreme Court begins his cross-examination.
Already,
the NDC propaganda machinery has been set in motion, trying to push for the
live telecast of the proceedings by Ghana Television to be truncated.
They
were all over on radio at the close of the weekend claiming that the government
has decided not to pay for the live telecast because of lack of funds even
though the Ministry of information has not made any such pronouncement.
The
Chairman is expected to complete his examination-in-chief today for Mr. Addison
to take over after which the other respondents President John Dramani Mahama
and the NDC will also cross-examination the
veteran election administrator, Dr. Afari-Gyan.
It
is an indication that oral testimony of the landmark petition is coming to an
end and the parties are expected to file their addresses for the court to give
its judgement.
The Issues
The
court is looking at two critical issues namely: Whether or not statutory
violation, irregularities and malpractices occurred during the December 2012
Presidential Election and if it did, whether violation, irregularities and
malpractices affected the outcome of the results.
Pink Sheet Count
As
the trial proceeded, the issue of how many ‘Statement of Poll and Declaration
of Results’ form known as Pink Sheet due to its colour, were attached as
exhibits by the petitioners had become very contentious.
This
compelled the nine-member panel chaired by Justice William Atuguba decided to
appoint an independent referee to do the counting and all the parties settled
on KPMG, a reputable international accounting firm, which later offered to do
it free of charge.
Dr. Afari-Gyan & Amadu Sulley
The
petitioners all along insisted that they attached 11,842 pink sheets as
exhibits and averred that none of the polling stations was ever used more than
once in their analysis.
However,
President Mahama and the NDC which came into the petition by way of a joinder
and spent more time on their cross-examination than even those who were
initially sued as respondents, have claimed that the petitioners did not file
11,842 pink sheets and accused them of duplicating the documents to make a
case.
They
would not tell the court how many pink sheets were served on them when the
order for ‘Further and better particulars’ was issued by the court, but
insisted it was 11,842.
Later,
when news broke that KPMG, in the
presence of two observers each from the parties, had found about 13,900 pink
sheets in the counting exercise, even more than the 11,842, the NDC was in the
media claiming they were going to complain to the court about the development
but nothing has been heard from them ever since.
KPMG,
reports indicate,has finished working on the categorization of the exhibits as
ordered by the court and it is expected to submit its report.
Wild Allegation
But
for the attempt by the NDC to halt the counting exercise, KPMG would have
advanced in the counting.
Just
as the exercise began, NDC lead counsel Tsatsu Tsikata came to the court
virtually indicting the integrity of the Supreme Court Registry with a story
that the exhibits in the court’s custody had been compromised and that the
boxes containing the pink sheets had increased from 24 to 31.
He
even suggested that once there was ‘criminalities’ involved, they would prefer
an extended control mechanism whereby copies served on chairman of the
nine-member panel and other two judges would be used to compare with the pink
sheets in the court’s registry.
However,
the court ruled that complaint by any of the parties should be channeled to the
independent referee (KPMG) who will then incorporate it in the report.
Afari-Gyan’s
Evidence
Dr.
Afari-Gyan in his examination-in-chieftold the packed court that given the huge
tasks placed on the shoulders of over 130,000 temporary staff used as Presiding
Officers, Returning Officers among others on election day, “it will be a
miracle if some of them did not commit mistakes.”
Transposition
Errors
He
said there are two transposition errors that can ‘easily’ be committed by the
election officials at the collation centre where scores of each candidate is being
transferred from the Pink Sheet onto the Collation Form at the constituency
level.
He
said for example “My scores have been entered against another candidate and
maybe, some other candidate’s scores have been entered against me that would be
transposition error.”
“Particularly
if care is not taken in arranging the candidates, if the candidates are not
arranged in the collation form as they are arranged on the polling station form
or the pink sheet, it could easily arise in transposition error.”
He
said “another transposition error than can occur at the collation centre is
taking the score from the pink sheet onto the collation sheet …let’s say the
number is 11,000 and then the Returning Officer picks 1,000, that would be
another transposition error.”
“We
have seen them where they have resulted in the defeat of candidates who should
have won the election.”
Dr.
Afari-Gyan gave an elaborate explanation of the processes involved in setting
up polling stations where he talked about how polling stations are identified
by their codes and names.
This
is in sharp contrast to NDC General-Secretary Johnson Asiedu-Nketiah’s evidence
that when in doubt it is the physical location of the polling station that is
taken into consideration.
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