AFARI-GYAN FUMBLES OVER PINK SHEET

Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia leaves the courtroom

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC) Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan appeared to present different accounts on the Statement of Poll and Declaration of Results Form aka Pink Sheet used in the December 2012 general election, when the Presidential Election Petition hearing resumed yesterday.

He gave conflicting evidence in respect of the time of the printing of the Pink Sheets, relevance of the Pink Sheets and could also not tell the court in which country the documents were printed.

Pink Sheet Printing Time

In round three of his cross-examination of the 2^nd Respondent witness by Phillip Addison, lead counsel for the petitioners, the EC boss initially told the nine-member panel chaired by Justice William Atuguba that the printing of the Pink Sheets was done in advance before the close of nominations of the candidates that contested the election.

However, when put to him by counsel that the printing could not have been possible since the EC needed to determine the position of candidates on the Pink Sheets before printing, Dr. Afari-Gyan then made a u-turn and said that they gave the go-ahead to the printers after the nomination had been closed and positions on the ballot paper determined.

The Pink Sheets according to Mr. Addison come with the candidates’ name and their positions already printed and it is similar to the printing of ballot papers.

Counsel: Dr. Afari-Gyan, how many of these pink sheets did you order?

Witness: My lords, I said we ordered 27,000.

Counsel: Is that made up of two sets?

Witness: It was supposed to be one set of 27,000, but the pages were to be 18pages…We decided that they be broken into two.

Counsel: Dr. Afari-Gyan, let’s go very slowly: You said you ordered 27,000 copies of the pink sheet?

Witness: Booklets.

Counsel: Booklets?

Witness: Yes.

Counsel: And these are made up of two sets?

Witness: My lords, I said what we ordered was 27, 000 booklets of 18 individual sheets. The technical staff defended that it would be difficult to write on the first sheet to make it legible after a certain number of the sheets, so they produced in twos….

Counsel: So in the pink sheet booklet in the Parliamentary elections, how many pages were in it?

Witness: 12, I think is the number.

Counsel: …Can you tell the court why that was not possible for the presidential?

Witness: I said that time that they were getting towards nomination, it appeared that there were going to be more candidates, we ended up with eight (8). Four took us to court because their nominations were not accepted. Adding that number, it would have been 12, then two others told us that they were going to take us to court, but they didn’t eventually do that. We also know that a lot of people took nomination forms who never showed up on nomination day, so every indication pointed to more than 14,15,16 candidates, that’s why we opted for 18 pages.

Samuel Ofosu Ampofo & Dan Botwe

Counsel: At the time you were ordering these pink sheets, you had conducted a ballot for placement of candidates on the ballots and pink sheets?

Witness: My lords, let me explain once again: with regard to offshore items….

Counsel: Please answer my question first, and then you explain.

Witness: The explanation is important…

Counsel: I’m saying that you have done this, so you answer either ‘Yes’ or  ‘No’, then you go on to explain.

Witness: My lords, I wish to explain…My lords, with regards to the offshore items, they start very early, because quite apart from the printing, they have to be brought back to Ghana, and we prefer that we are brought by ship rather by air because of the cost element. So before we did the nomination, we have already-in anticipation of this-, we had already given the bid for the contract….

Powers of Clairvoyance

Counsel: Dr. Afari-Gyan, you are sitting here there telling this court that somehow, by your powers of clairvoyance, you were able to determine the order of the candidates on the ballot?

Witness: My lords, I haven’t said that…

Counsel: What are you saying?

Witness: I said that we had already begun the process of the acquisition of the pink sheets booklets because it is an offshore item and it will take a very long time for us to get it. I’m not saying that we had determined the order of the candidates, my lords.

Counsel: Dr. Afari-Gyan, my question is: At the time you placed the order, the ballot for placement had not been done?

Witness: My lords, am saying that we had initiated the placement of the order long before we did the nomination of the ordering of the candidates.

Counsel: Had the ordering [balloting for placement on the ballot] been done [before the ordering of the pink sheet printing] or not?

Witness:  We had already begun the process of the acquisition of the pink sheets before we did the balloting.

Counsel: You may have started whatever process, but I’m saying that this balloting for placement had been done before you ordered the [pink sheet] printing?

Witness: ..Sighs…My lord, all I can say is that the printing started after we had done the balloting…The printing could not have started until after they have done the balloting.

Counsel: So Dr. Afari-Gyan, I want a very simple answer to a very simple question: That at the time you ordered the printing of the pink sheets, the ballots for placement by the candidates, had been done?

Kwadwo Mpiani & Matthew Opoku Prempeh aka Napo

Witness: My lords, I’m finding it difficulty on this. At the time we supplied them the material that could do the printing with…but that is not the origination of the process.

Counsel: Dr. Afari-Gyan, can you tell the court how the printers were able to determine the placement of the candidates [before they started printing the pink sheets]?

Witness: (Stammers and uttered some inaudible answer)….sometimes, they set these things, as soon as you put the name there, they just print the name and then they start rolling.

Counsel: So they had set it and they were waiting for your confirmation after the placement [of candidates on their sequential order]?

Witness: Yes, I would say so.

Counsel: Even though at the time and the placement had been done and you knew precisely the candidates for the presidential election, you ordered them to print two sets?

Witness: (smiles uneasily)…As I have said, when you deal with these offshore items, my lords, you pay some money upfront for the total cost. We had said we wanted 18 which has been divided into two, so when we did not go into the second, they just printed both names on both sets.

Printing Location

Dr. Afari-Gyan told the court that there is no company in Ghana that had the capacity to print the pink sheets but could not tell the court the exact country where they were printed.

Counsel: Now, the ballot papers were printed in this country?

Witness: Yes my lords.

Counsel: Where were the pink sheets printed?

Witness: (Stammers slightly)...I believe they were printed overseas; let me say overseas, not in Ghana.

Counsel: Do you know where it was printed?

Witness: No, my lords, we deal with Ghanaian companies and the Ghanaian companies contract somebody abroad to do the printing. We contacted with a Ghanaian company to do the printing.

Counsel: Dr. Afari-Gyan, my question is simple, do you know where it was printed?

Witness: My lords, I don’t know.

Counsel: But you just have an idea that it was printed abroad?

Witness: My lords, I know that for a fact.

Counsel: You did not bother to find out where in abroad it was printed?... (Mr Quarshie-Idun interrupts)

Mr. Quarshie-Idun: My lord, the witness has said that he does not know where they were printed, so that question has been answered….

Counsel: (Repeats the question)…Did you bother to find out where it was printed?

Witness: My lords, I didn’t think it was important.

Josua Akamba, ET mensah & Peter MacManu

Counsel: So the Ghanaian contractor to whom you gave the contract, never informed you where it was going to be printed?

Witness: My lords, I never asked.

Counsel: So how did you get to know it was printed abroad?

Witness: Because when during the bid, we knew that no printing house in Ghana has the capacity to do it?

Counsel: So at the time you were awarding the contract, you were aware that the Ghanaian contractor could not print it?

Witness: Yes. My lord, when you are in need of indelible ink, you know that no Ghanaian company can manufacture indelible ink, but we go to a Ghanaian company to acquire it.

Counsel: Dr. Afari-Gyan, you have introduced a new element: Ink. We haven’t finished with the pink sheet. Here you are awarding a contract to a company that you know cannot carry out that contract and you did not bother to find out who is going to carry it out. It that what you are telling the court?...(Mr. Quarshie-Idun intervenes)

Mr. Quarshie-Idun: My lord, the witness is being harassed…

Counsel: I believe for counsel, a question with no answer, amounts to harassment…

Witness: Well…I lost track of the question, if you would repeat it, I will answer it…

Counsel: (Repeats the question)…

Witness: My lords, I was fully satisfied and knew that that Ghanaian company would be able to deliver.

Counsel: Which Ghanaian company was that?

Witness: My lords, Buck Press.

Counsel: Were parties informed about the printing of the pink sheets, like they were about the ballot papers?

Witness: No, and the reason is that we are not supposed to tell them everything.

Relevance of Pink Sheets

In his attempt to discredit the petitioners’ claim of serial numbers that are already embossed on Pink Sheets, Dr. Afari-Gyan initially said Pink Sheets were not as sensitive as ballot papers.

But when counsel reminded him that Pink Sheets were used to declare President for Ghana, he said once it has been used for an election ‘they become sensitive’.

The commissioner explained that ballot papers and pink sheets were not in the same category of sensitivity and that there were different degrees of sensitivity saying “a pink sheet with nothing written on it is not as sensitive as that on the ballot paper.”

Counsel: Dr. Afari-Gyan, you are saying that the pink sheet numbers are for purposes of counting how many pink sheets have been printed, so it’s supposed to start from one to 27,000. Now in the case of ballot papers which are in the region of 15 million, are you telling us that the numbers on those ballot boxes, amounts to numbers printed, simplicita?

Witness: No my lords, if you are going to print ballot papers, they are sensitive materials, not just critical, they are sensitive materials: Sensitive materials in the sense that if they fall into the wrong hands, they would corrupt the outcome of the election. So ballot papers and pink sheets are not in the same category, according to our classification. The pink sheet, without a polling station number written on it… etc. It [the pink sheet] is not a sensitive item; the ballot paper by its very nature is a sensitive item and it must be treated differently from other things.

Stephen Asamoah Boateng aka Asa B

Counsel: Dr Afari-Gyan, you are telling this court that the pink sheet on which any result can be written on to determine the Presidency of this country is not sensitive, is that what you are telling this court….?

Witness: No, that is not what I mean by not sensitive, let me tell you: A ballot box for example, is not a sensitive material; a ballot box is sensitive only when it is in use, otherwise it is a simple receptacle….Ballot papers from the time of production are sensitive in themselves….

Counsel: In the way that pink sheets are not?

Witness: There are different degrees of sensitivity….

Counsel: In spite of what the ballot say, the pink sheet can be used to give a completely different result and that is not sensitive?

Witness: My lord, what I’m saying is that a pink sheet with nothing written on is not sensitive.

Counsel: So what are we doing here, we are not talking about empty ballot boxes, we are not talking about empty pink sheets; we are talking about the pink sheets and what they are supposed to do, just like the ballot papers?

Witness: My lords, we are here talking about pink sheets with something written on them.

Counsel: So the pink sheets are sensitive?

Witness: Once they have been used for elections, yes they are sensitive.

Counsel: Now, when you ordered them, you ordered them for the purposes of the 2012 elections?

Witness: Yes my lords.

Serial Numbers

Dr. Afari-Gyan told the court that the commission asked the printers to put numbers on the Pink Sheets but did not give them the range in which they should do it.

Counsel: The pink sheets…they also come with numbers embossed on them…?

Witness: Yes they do

Counsel: Now, these numbers are printed on these forms with your consent?

Witness: My lords, I have explained that we do not generate these numbers….

Counsel: Can you please answer my question, they are printed with your consent?...(Mr. Quashie-Idun steps in again)..

Mr. Quarshie-Idun: My lords, the witness is in the process of answering the questions

Witness: My lords, the printer did not come and ask us for consent to generate a specific series of numbers

Counsel: There is an extra charge on putting these numbers on the pink sheet?

Witness: My lords, when we contract a printer, he gives us a composite charge, I didn’t know whether there was an extra charge for the number printed on it.

Counsel: You have told this court that the number on the pink sheet was for purposes of counting the number of sheets printed, is that not so?

Johnson Asiedu-Nketiah

Witness: Yes my lords, you see, we are buying 27,000 pink sheets, there must be a way for us at the receiving end to know whether we are receiving 27,000. I believe so for the person who is making the pink sheets must have some way of counting that he has in fact made 27,000 and that’s what those numbers are for.

Counsel: Now, Dr. Afari-Gyan, do you know that every printer has a counter, which indicates the number of sheets that have been printed…?

Witness: I don’t know that

Counsel: The photocopier in your office, it has a counter; if you indicate the number of copies you want, it will print for you, am I right?

Witness: My lords, if it prints for me and it has not indicated some numbers, it means I would have to count 27,000 one-by-one…

Counsel: Dr. Afari-Gyan, if you want 10 copies, you would enter the number 10 and it would print 10, so you don’t need to count…

Witness: My lords, I am saying that when I have ordered 27,000 sheets, if there are no numbers on them when they come, to satisfy myself that I have 27,000 sheets; I would have to count them.

Counsel: Now, if those numbers are for purposes of counting, why it does not start from one (1) and continue to 27,000?

Witness: My lords, it is very simple; it’s because I did not generate them.

Counsel: Oh, you said you want to know that you have received 27,000; I thought that you would be interested in knowing-just by looking at that number; you know that indeed, you have 27,000.

Witness: Yes my lord, but I am saying that I’m not in the printer’s mind to know where [the sequence] he started from…

Counsel: You need that information, so wouldn’t you satisfy yourself on that?

Witness: The printer would have to tell me how the numbering has been done so that I know that I got the quantity that I ordered.

Dr. Afari-Gyan then told the court that at the time they were going into elections they were expecting more candidates and therefore decided to print more to cover all of them.

He explained that four were disqualified and decided to take the commission to court but lost whilst there were two others who threatened to go to court but could not.

He added that there were several others who took nomination forms but never showed up adding “So in effect over 16 presidential candidates were being considered that is why we ordered 18 sheets.”

Ballot Papers Example

Counsel: So the number of ballots papers that you printed which far exceeds the number of pink sheets, that also has to do with counting precisely the number of ballot papers, is that what you are telling the court?

Witness: My lord, we tell the printer, the total number that we want, then we tell the printer the denominations that we want them….and that is how we order the ballots.

Counsel: I am asking you, that the numbers on the ballot papers indicates the number of ballot papers; that’s what you have said?

Witness: They come in a range, yes.

Counsel: It indicates the number of ballot papers?

Witness: My lords, if you take a booklet of ballot papers, it will begin from some number and end on some number, arranged in a serial-sequentially.

NPP lawyers

Sheet Serial Number U-Turn

Counsel: So in awarding the contract to the Ghanaian company, did you specify what it is that you wanted?

Witness: My lord, in the award of any contract, we would specify what we wanted.

Counsel; Good, and obviously, you did not indicate that you wanted numbers to be printed on the top right hand of the pink sheet?

Witness: My lords, the form that we now call pink sheets have always come with numbers.

Counsel: I’m saying: you never asked for it; it was not in your request?

Witness: We did not say that the numbers should begin from this to that, we know that there would be numbers on the sheet…

Counsel: Did you request for the number?

Witness: Yes….

Special Voting

When the issue of special voting came up, Dr. Afari-Gyan disagreed with counsel whether pink sheets are used in recording results for special voting and whether the special voting centres had code.

Mr. Addison put it to Dr. Afari-Gyan that results of special voting are recorded directly unto the Collation Form and not on any Pink Sheet to which the EC Chairman said “that is not correct.”

Mr. Addison then put it to the witness that there is no mention of pink sheet in the Election Manual and after reading the document Dr. Afari-Gyan said special voting occurs at polling stations and so they use the same regulations of a polling station.

Mr. Addison then suggested to him it is because there is no pink sheet for special voting that is why the results are recorded directly unto the Collation Form to which Dr. Afari-Gyan said “you are right.”

The witness also agreed with counsel that there is no polling station code in respect of special voting after initially disputing counsel’s claims.

Mr. Addison asked if it the same officer who presides over polling station centres during special voting are the same people who manned the centre during regular voting but Dr. Afari-Gyan said if the person is a Presiding Officer he will be the same person to man the polling station during the regular election.

Election Security

Dr. Afari-Gyan admitted that working hard to secure the integrity of elections in the country has been a difficult task to handle.

Counsel: Dr Afari-Gyan, one of the cardinal features of the electoral processes under the Fourth Republic to date, has been how to guarantee the safety of election materials, am I right?

Witness: My lord that has always been a concern.

Counsel: I believe this is to avoid the mischief of substituting election materials?

Witness: Yeas and no.

Counsel: …Also to guarantee the credibility of the election process?

Witness: Yes my lord

.

Counsel: So what are the means that the EC has adopted to forestall some of these irregularities and malpractices?

Witness: My lords, I didn’t see the direction of the question; I don’t understand it.

Counsel: (Repeats the question)…. (Counsel for the second respond James Quashie-Idun raises an objection)

Mr. Quarshie-Idun: My lords, there is nowhere stated in their pleadings that they are accusing us of not having secured the electoral materials… (Justice Baffoe-Bonnie interjects)

Justice Baffoe-Bonnie: Counsel, let him go on, I think that the question is fair…

Counsel: Can I suggest that one of the means that has been used by the EC is to pre-emboss electoral materials with numbers?

Witness: I will disagree with you. I don’t know what you mean by pre-embossed, but one of the important things is rather to have secure vaults for us to keep election materials…..This is important because in this age of electronic advancement, it is possible to fake some of our materials, so my lords, even beyond these measures of vault and security personnel guarding the materials, we believe that an essential part of election security lies in the process of doing things.

Counsel: Now it is to safeguard the electoral process that you have numbers on ballot boxes?

Witness: My lords, we don’t have numbers on our ballot boxes.

Counsel: Are seals put on the ballot boxes?

Witness: My lord, we put seals on our ballot boxes, yes we do.

NPP Gurus

Counsel: Do these seals have numbers?

Witness: They have numbers but they were randomly picked.

Counsel: And those numbers are restricted to the particular polling station…

Witness: My lords, it’s after you have secured the ballot box that you record the numbers.

BVD Machines 
Counsel: The BVD machines reinforces the principle of one man, one vote isn't it?

Witness: Yes that is the case

Counsel: So the machine is to ensure no one person votes more than once, isn't it?

Witness: Yes, Afari-Gyan says.

FO Verifications

Mr. Addison put it to Dr. Afari-Gyan that in the register given to the NPP there were only a little over 3,000 people categorized under Face Only (FO) verification but the EC Boss dismissed the claim

He told the court that the register given to the NPP was the same given to the other parties and had over 70,000 people in the category of FO.

The Analysis

Counsel then made a reference to a statement which says the register given to the NPP was different to the one given to the NDC before the election but Dr. Afari-Gyan contested that statement followed by Mr. Quarshie-Idun and then Tsatsu Tsikata representing the NDC.

Both counsel were of the view that nowhere had it been stated in the court that two different registers were given to the NPP and NDC but Mr. Addison produced the proceedings of May 28 p14 as well as the Paragraph 8 of the Second amended answer to second amended petition filed on 3 April, 2013 in which the second Respondent gave a figure representing the total number of people on the Register before continuing with his cross-examination.

Dr. Afari-Gyan then told the court that he could not give the exact number of ballots printed for the election and when he was asked if he checked on the number of printing houses that printed the ballot papers the EC Boss mentioned seven and went ahead to give their names.

Mr. Addison again made reference to the analysis that was given to the witness last week and said per the 11,115 polling stations in contention, the difference between the number of registered voters as per the EC's register given to the NPP and that as stated on the pink sheets there is a difference of 962,888 to which Dr. Afari-Gyan said he did not know the basis for that analysis.

Mr. Addison again said the total number of registered voters in the 11,115 polling station is 11,511,207 so if the court is to go by the assertion of the witness that means the number of ballots printed is ten per cent of the total number of registered voters then the number of ballots printed should be around 15 million but Mr. Quarshie-Idun raised an objection.

The court closed quiet early because the parties needed to meet KPMG, the reputable international accounting firm that has been asked to determine the actual number of Pink Sheets attached as exhibits by the petitioners.

Sitting continues today