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Nana Akufo-Addo leaves the court
Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By William Yaw Owusu
Friday, May 31, 2013.
In an attempt to justify the alleged irregularities as
errors in the December 2012 Presidential Election Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan,
Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC) yesterday admitted that the officials
contracted by the commission for the exercise were not properly trained.
He said at the Presidential Election Petition
currently at the Supreme Court that the over 130,000 personnel recruited as
temporary staff to help organize the elections in all the 26,002 polling
stations lacked the requisite training to be able to do a good job.
“When you have a huge number of temporary employees,
training becomes difficult. Getting the right caliber of persons for the
exercise was a problem…given their tasks, it will be a miracle if some of them
did not commit mistakes.”
While the petitioners insist that the alleged irregularities,
malpractices and violations committed on the face of 11,842 ‘Statement of poll
and declaration of results’ form which has to be known as Pink Sheets because
of its colour, affected the outcome of the results that made John Dramani
Mahama President, the respondents on the other hand claim they were either
administrative, trans positional or clerical errors.
Taking his turn for the first time as witness since
the case began; Dr. Afari-Gyan said all personnel used for the 2012 general
elections were employed on a temporary basis.
Led in evidence by James Quarshie-Idun before a nine
member justices, the EC Chairman said apart from the recruitment of Presiding
Officers plus four personnel making up the 130,000, the commission also
recruited 275 Returning Officers plus two deputies in all the constituencies
making a total of 825.
He said that none of the permanent staff of the
commission actually took part in the administration of the election at the
26,002 polling stations.
Dr. Afari-Gyan said the commission hired the
Returning Officers for a period of three months while the actual period of work
for the numerous personnel was not more than four days after a few days of
training them.
In his attempt to debunk the 2nd
petitioner and principal witness Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s evidence that party
agents were observers in the electoral process, the EC Chairman said “we don’t
regard party agents as observers. They were part of the process.”
The
Registration
He told the court that after demarcation all the
registration centres, the commission proceeded to register all eligible voters.
He said they collected variety of personal data from
all eligible voters and said the 2012 election was special because of the
biometric technology that was introduced.
Dr. Afari-Gyan said the biometric technology helped
them to prepare what he called ‘accurate register’ because incidence of multiple
registration and other related problems were addressed.
He said they issued on-the-spot voters ID cards and
admitted that there were a lot of problems including equipment failure, associated
with the registration because “we were doing biometric for the first time.”
He said all the political parties were involved in
the registration exercise and at the end of each day, the party agents were
given daily print outs of the register.
He said that there were special provisions for
people who had permanent trauma or temporary trauma and said they were captured
in the register as Face Only (FO) voters.
He insisted that it was not true that the biometric
verification was limited only to voters whose fingerprint was going to be
captured by the verification device.
He told the court that the category of voters with
FO was 70,951 and not 3196 as claimed by the petitioners.
Dr. Afari-Gyan said that the provisional register
was displayed to the public and the anomalies found were addressed accordingly.
He said the number of voters that complained about
anomalies in the register stood at 11,000 and the commission was able to
address the problems.
He said that the register used for the election was
14.031,680 saying “this was the register we used for the election and that was
what we gave to the political parties.”
Disabled
Registration
Counsel asked the witness to elaborate on issues
that arose during the biometric voters’ register. He made a lengthy
presentation of the topic, but the high point of the explanation is voters who
had certain deformities.
Counsel: Dr. Afari Gyan, were there any differences
in the category of people who were registered, were there any differences in
the people who were registered?
Witness:
Yeah, some of the person who apply for registration did not have fingers at
all. We classified these group of people as persons who are suffering from
“Permanent Trauma”; permanent in the sense that we don’t think that they would
ever get their fingers back. But they qualify to be registered as voters so we
did register them….When appear in the register, they would have the letters
“FO” against their names. During elections, their data is scanned; their
picture would pop up on the screen of the verification device and there would
be alongside the picture, “FO”. An FO means “Face Only” verification….
Nana Ato Dadzie
Counsel:
Dr. Afari Gyan you heard Dr. Bawumia’s evidence in this court on the “Face
Only” or “FOs” registration he said there were 3,196 what comment do you have
on that?
Witness:
I don’t know where he got that figure from, my lords. The figure is well of
70,000. In fact the figure now is 70,951and I know that an earlier figure was
given which would be less than this, but that figure has gone up by 62 people.
The reason is simply because we have completed the registration of the people
in the Kassena Nankana district following the order of the High Court…so even
the region with the lowest number would be more than 3,000….The second category
consisted of Ghanaians living abroad but who were qualified under our law to be
registered and they would be made up of people working in the diplomatic
missions and their dependants; Ghanaian students abroad on government
scholarship; and Ghanaians working in international organizations of which
Ghana is a member. These groups of people under our laws are qualified to be
registered under our law. The Electoral Commission didn’t know them, so the
names were given to us by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Ministry gave us
a list of more than 2000 such people. We gave the list to the political
parties; we also gave them the locations abroad where these people would be
registered and the times during which they would be registered…
Polling
Station Codes
In response to a question from his counsel about the
setting up of a polling station, Dr. Afari Gyan elaborated extensively on the
various processes involved in setting up a polling station, culminating in the
naming and coding of each polling station. His explanation was widely contrary
to Johnson Asiedu Nketia-the star witness of the first and third
respondent-theory that two polling stations can have the same quote and when in
doubt, the physical location of the station is what counts.
Witness:
We first select a suitable place then we give the place a unique code and a
name. The code is unique first in the sense that no two polling stations ever
have the same code number. It is also unique in the sense that the code is
consciously crafted to contain information that directs you to the location of
the polling station. The system we use is described as Alphanumeric. That is to
say, it combines letters of the alphabet and numbers and the system is a letter
followed by six digits….This system makes it very easy, so if we see a code
which comprises say four digits, we know immediately that it is not a correct
code….The letter that begins a code, tells you the region which a polling
station is situated… (He goes on to explain that the letter in the code
indicates the region while the number represents district, electoral area, and
the specific polling station within the electoral area)…So the combination of
the code and the name [of the polling station] would direct you to a specific
place.
Counsel:
Dr. Afari Gyan how would you describe this system of coding?
Witness: My lords, we see it as a permanent system of
coding. You see, if you take the letter of the alphabet which tells you the
region, it’s permanent in the sense that it would change only when Ghana has
more regions than there are letters of the alphabet. My lords, as I was saying,
we regard the system of coding as a permanent system of coding and that’s why
we attach so much importance to it….
Stephen Asamoah Boateng & Cecilia Abena Dapaah
Counsel:
Dr. Afari Gyan you mentioned that the code may or may not end in an “A” or “B”,
could you explain to the court the circumstances under which this could happen?
Witness:
It could be A, it be B, it could be C. If we establish two stations in the same
locations, we would distinguish them by A and B. If we have an existing polling
station and during the period of registration we notice that that polling
station has become over-subscribed, because we don’t want the numbers in the
polling station to be too large, then we would split the polling station into A
and B.
10%
Additional Ballots
He said the commission determined the order in which
the candidates should be placed on the ballot paper before they went ahead to
do the printing in the presence of all the party agents.
He said they added 10% to the number of ballot
papers in the voters register. He added that “we aggregate the resulting
figures on constituency basis then on regional basis and finally on national
basis to get the total number to be printed.”
He said the ballots were delivered in hundreds, fifties
and twenty-fives in booklet forms and added that in practical situations the
actual distribution is different.
“When it comes to distribution you cannot stick to
the additional 10%.”
He said that ballot papers have serial numbers as
required by law and they are copied on the at the polling stations on election
day.
Transposition
Errors
Counsel:
…what happens at the collation centre?
Witness:
Collation centre is where the returning officer who is really the person in
charge of the election in the constituency on behalf of the Electoral
Commission…and the returning officer is the person who is going to put together
on what we call Collation Form all the result from the various polling stations
in the constituency. At the collation centre, they would have agents of the
candidates and ideally, those agents would have the results from the various
polling stations in their possession… from which they can check whether the
collation being done is correct or not. But let me say that there are two
errors that can easily be committed at the collation centre and we call them in
election language, Transposition errors, and let me tell you that some of these
things occurred…Two forms of transposition errors: My scores have been entered
against another candidate and maybe some other candidate’s scores have been
entered against me, that would be a 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 give rise to a transposition error. Another
transposition error that 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 he [the returning officer] picks 1,000, that would be another transposition
error. So when we do the training, we tell people to watch out for the
possibility of transposition errors. We have seen them where they have resulted
in the defeat of candidates who should have won the election.
Dr. Afari-Gyan with Amadu Sulley
Election
Day
He said Early or Special Voting was done four days
before the actual election for EC officials and security personnel whose
services were required on election day.
He said that Special Voting has its own pink sheet
and added that they only move all election materials on election day.
He said after the Presiding Officer sets up the the
polling station, the law requires certain portions of the pink sheet to be
filled before the ballot commences saying “if he/she does not do that it is an
irregularity.”
He said that stamps used on polling day do not have
serial numbers and added that “they are distributed at random.
Dr. Afari-Gyan also said that the ballot boxes as
well as the tamper-proof envelopes did not have serial numbers.
The
Pink Sheet
Counsel takes the witness to the various columns to
be filled on the pink sheets by presiding officers before and after the
elections at the polls….
Counsel:
Now let’s go to section C...
Witness:
My lords, section C says “Ballot Accounting” and the instruction here: “To be
filled in at end of the poll before counting commences”.
Counsel:
And the next question [on the pink sheet] Dr. Afari Gyan?
Witness: The next question is: “What is the number
of ballots issued to voters on the proxy voters’ list?” Well if there are any
proxies and you have issued ballots to the proxies then you would indicate it
there.
Counsel:
and (Section) C4… (Realized he made a mistake, he quickly corrects himself)…I’m
sorry C3
Witness:
C3 is missing from this book. This is an older form…as I said, because
normally, C3 was inserted to cater for a special facility that’s why it’s
missing from this one.
Justice
Baffoe-Bonnie: I think we need a better explanation
than that, we don’t have C3.
Witness:
I’m saying that this form is the earlier version…
Justice Baffoe-Bonnie: Yes, I understand, I heard
you, but what I’m saying is this, if this is an earlier version of the pink
sheet, then we should have C3 but with a different question, but this one jumps
to C4 specifically leaving C3 out why?
Witness:
Ohh, it is a number problem I think… (Court roars into laughter). My lord if
you look on the right side and you will see there is a mistake…
What
is Election
When asked to define election he said it was difficult
to do because it had no precise definition before saying in a democracy it is a
contest between candidates and that contest is decided by a poll adding “it is
a process which consist of various activities which culminate in activities of
election and subsequent declaration of the results.”
Personal
Experience
Sharing his personal experience, Dr. Afari-Gyan he
has been the Commissioner since 1993 and also mentioned that he worked and
served in several boards and international organizations.
The
Clash
Dr. Afari-Gyan’s long winding testimony caught the
attention of Phillip Addison, lead counsel for the petitioners to raise an
objection saying that some of the things the commissioner was saying were not
in either the pleadings or affidavits of the 2nd respondent.
He said described the testimony of Dr. Afari-Gyan as
a ‘lecture’ saying “We have sat down for this lecture to go on for too long.”
However, Mr. Quarshie-Idun replied that “it is
perfectly in order. We are here trying to show how the election was conducted.”
In a 6-3 majority decision with Justices Julius
Ansah, Rose C. Owusu and Annin-Yeboah, dissenting, the objection was overruled
and the witness proceeded with his examination-in-chief.
The
Protest
Just when Dr. Afari Gyan mounted the witness box,
lead counsel for the petitioners Philip Addison protested his presence.
Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia
Mr.
Addison: My lords, we would like to seek some directions
from the court in respect of the witness in the box. Pursuant to the directions
of this court, all parties filed affidavits. Now, affidavits filed on behalf of
the second respondent were sworn to by Amadu Sulley and no reason why Dr. Afari
Gyan is now the one going to testify. Quite clearly, he has not sworn to any
affidavit, and we do not know the ambit of what it is that he is coming to give
in his evidence-in-chief. The evidence of Sulley amounts to evidence-in-chief
and a different person is now coming to continue with the evidence-in-chief, so
we would like to have direction from the court in this regard (Counsel for the
second respondent James Quashie-Idun responds
Mr.
Quashie-Idun: My lords, the party is the Electoral
Commission, it is not only Mr. Amadu Sulley who has sworn to affidavit; it is
Amadu Sulley and also Kwadwo Safo-Katanka, the two deputies. They swore
affidavits to the interlocutories to the matters the court dealt with and he is
here as the party representing the electoral commission to give evidence, my
lord. I will like to add that the affidavit sworn to by Mr. Sulley and by Mr.
Safo-Katanka, could be considered as affidavits of witnesses to the party, but
here is the party himself to give evidence, my lords.
Mr.
Addison: First of all, Mr. Safo Katanka only swore to
affidavits in support of interlocutory applications. In respect to their answer
and affidavits in pursuant to the order of 2nd April, they were
sworn to by Mr. Sulley. If counsel is now saying that Mr. Amadu Sulley is the
witness for the second respondent, then we may wonder why he’s been sitting in
court all this while, it disqualifies him as a witness then, because all along,
we presumed that he was representing the second respondent and it was in that
capacity he’s been sitting in this courtroom. (The judges consulted among one
another for a substantive ruling on the issue)
Gloria Akuffo
Justice
Atuguba: This is our clarification; Dr. Kwadwo Afari Gyan is
representing the Electoral Commission in his capacity as a party to this case,
and the returning officer to the general elections of Ghana. He can therefore
pursuant to the directives for trial in this case on 2nd April 2013,
give evidence on behalf of the second respondent.
Sitting continues on June 3, 2013 where Dr.
Afari-Gyan will continue his examination-in-chief.
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